


we all float down here

by CassandraStarflower



Series: The Big Reveal [6]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Ensemble Cast, Implications, Implied Creepiness, Multi, Sexual Abuse, Summer (the person who kept commenting on my mass fandom reading/watching fic) this is for u, Watching the Movie, all relationships are either canon or fate heavily implies them, bad or something, bc yknow Alvin, hi, idk - Freeform, if calling god they is, large numbers of people being abducted by a crazed goddess, lil bit of everything, lil bit of reddie, lil bit of stozier, may as well make the fucking implication, named fate, of something suspicious, okay if you've ever read the plethora of 'hockstetter rapes richie' fics out there, or yknow there’s Awkward Staring involved, pls pardon the shitty title, reaction fic, sorry - Freeform, the fandom tag is different, the mild religiousness of having someone who's a goddess, this is becoming my staple, when was someone gonna tell me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2020-10-04 12:09:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20470811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassandraStarflower/pseuds/CassandraStarflower
Summary: October 1st, 1989 is a perfectly normal day in Derry. Sure, it’s been raining way too much lately, but honestly, what’s the worst that’ll happen?The citizens of this small Maine town figured the worst would be having to get more sandbags or clean up some minor flood damage. No one even began to imagine what would happen.Or: Fate, goddess of fate, decides to pick the absolute worst time in her life and the best time in theirs to show the townspeople of Derry a certain horror movie.IT.





	1. It Begins (October 1st, 1989-Disaster)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SummerTheSlytherinApricot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerTheSlytherinApricot/gifts).

> college is kicking my ass i needed a distraction and I had a very persistent fan on my other fic, “if you want to leave the world you live in (lay your head down and stay a while)” who wanted me to finish at least the IT part. Sorry, Summer, I won’t ever finish that fic probably, but I figured I could write this for you instead!  
Also I literally wrote this today, be nice, i didn't edit it im tired

October 1st, 1989. Day One of the Cycle. It had just awoken. 

It would start feeding soon, after It had figured out just who was available to snack upon. 

And then It emerged from Its lair and discovered that the entire town of Derry was completely empty. Devoid of life. 

This… this was not normal. No apocalyptic event seemed to have occured. Everything was wet, yes, but It had triggered rainstorms when It emerged from Its slumber before. 

Where the _ fuck _ was all of Its food. 

Meanwhile, in another level of reality, in a room filled with couches and chairs, a small blonde girl cackled. 

-_-_-_-

The first thought that crossed Richie Tozier’s mind when he awoke was quite simple and very characteristic of him: _ what the fuck. _

The room in which he awoke was definitely not his bedroom, his _ house _, or any of his friends’ rooms. It was large, and stone, and full of couches-including his own, which contained himself, Eddie, Stan, Bill, and Georgie and was a wee bit cramped. 

The couch right next to theirs had some kids Richie vaguely remembered from school. Beverly Marsh, a chubby kid that Richie thought maybe had started school yesterday? And the homeschool kid. Mike, maybe. 

His parents were sharing a couch with the Urises, Mrs. Kaspbrak had her own chair, the Denbroughs were sharing a couch with some lady and a guy who was presumably a relative of Homeschool. 

Huh. 

Now that Richie was really looking, it seemed like all of Derry was crowded into this room. He suppressed a shiver and sent his pointy elbow directly into Stan’s side. 

“Hey, Stan!” he hissed. “Wake the fuck up!” 

“Richie-” Stan started, stirring and shaking his head sleepily. “What the fuck are you doing in my-” 

Stan broke off to stare at their surroundings. “Oh.”

“Yeah, no shit.” 

More people were beginning to stir, but Stan and Richie were the first to notice the girl sitting beside the immense screen. 

As soon as everyone was awake, she spoke. 

“Hello, everyone!” she chirped, before barreling on, ignoring all cries of shock. “I’m Fate, the goddess of Fate, and I’m here to show you all the best horror movie to ever exist.” 

“If you’re really a goddess, why would you kidnap a bunch of people and show them a _ horror movie _?” Stan demanded. 

“See, this is why you’re the smartest.” Fate told him. “I’m showing you this movie because it’s only a horror movie in the world I come from. In your world, it’s real life, and it starts in like five days. October 6th, 1989.” 

“A horror movie?” Richie asked, rolling his eyes. 

Fate rolled her eyes. “Please, no pretending in here. We’re all human. Mostly.” 

“What kind of horror movie?” asked Wentworth Tozier suspiciously. “Psychological?” 

“Well… kind of. See, you guys kinda gotta understand that monsters are real. Carrie White happened. So I mean. Is it a stretch to believe in monsters?” 

“I guess not.” 

“Yeah. So it’s psychological horror, but it’s other kinds of horror too. You’re gonna cry. You’re gonna cry. You might even scream. Somebody may have a heart attack. Actually, there are some people who are perfectly welcome to have heart attacks and die.” 

“If you’re a goddess can’t you just make people die yourself?” Beverly asked, narrow-eyed.

Fate considered this. “I don’t think you guys wanna hear about all the rules I have to abide by. No deus ex machina, though, not in that regard. I could do subliminal suggestion to get someone to commit homicide though… but you’re not here to hear about that. You’re here for the movie!” 

“I guess there wasn’t much I was going to do today anyway.” Richie remarked, shrugging. 

Fate smirked. “You’re going to hate this movie, kid.” 

“What’s it called?” Ben asked, before shrinking. 

“IT.” 

She shifted, pulled a remote out from who-knows-where, and started the movie. 


	2. A Small Paper Boat (SS Georgie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The movie begins. People cry. The first death happens. More people cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this got a way bigger response than I expected! This is just the first scene of the movie, but it turned out a little bit longer than I expected.

The movie began. 

_ A shot of the Denbrough house. Then a piece of paper being ripped out and folded. A small hand making a smiley face in the rainy window. Georgie turns from the window. _

_“Sure I will not get into trouble, Bill?”__  
_ “Trouble for what?” Sharon asked, eyes narrowing. 

_Bill glances up from the bed. “Don't be a wu-wu-wuss. I'd come with you if I weren't…” he starts coughing. “-dying.”__  
__Georgie approaches the bed. “You're not dying!”__  
__Bill looks up, grinning. “You didn't see the v-v-vomit coming out of my nose this morning?”__  
__“That's disgusting.”___  
“That’s** physically impossible**, Bill!” Eddie squawked. Bill just laughed, though inside he felt a strong sense of fear. Why was this being shown in a **horror movie**?

_ “Ok, go get the wax.” _

_Georgie hesitates. “In the cellar?”__  
__“You want to fl-fl-float, don’t you?”___  
Fate, up by the screen, grimaced. This only heightened Bill’s sense of unease. 

_ “Fine.” Georgie grabs a radio from the desk and heads downstairs, past his mother playing Fur Elise on the piano, and down into the basement.  _

_ He reaches for the light switch and flips it several times. Nothing happens- the power is out.  _

“I hate going in the cellar.” Georgie pouted. Bill ruffled his hair, ready to tell him that nothing was gonna get him in there, but hesitated. It was a horror movie of their lives, right? With a monster that supposedly lived in their town? 

Maybe something  **was** waiting for Georgie. Why else would they be shown this? 

_Georgie cautiously makes his way down the stairs.__  
__“Hurry up.” Bill says into the walkie-talkie. Georgie fumbles with his.___  
“Why are we watching this?” Patrick Hockstetter complained. 

Fate gave him a look of incredible dislike. “I understand that you have a mental disorder that makes you completely incapable of empathy and realizing that you are in fact not the only ‘real’ person in the world, but this movie is not in fact about you!” 

“What?”

“Jesus Christ. I give up.” 

_ “Ok, don't worry.” he says, before putting it away again. “Where is the wax? There it is. Yes.” he grabs it. Then sees two pinpricks of light. _ _   
_ _ “What was that? What is that?” He grabs a flashlight and turns it on, pointing it- there’s nothing out of the ordinary there.  _

No one relaxed. 

_ Back upstairs, Bill finishes painting wax onto the boat. _ __   
_ “Alright. There you go. Sh-sh-she's all ready, captain.” He hands the boat to Georgie with a smile. _ __   
_ “She?” Georgie asks, holding the boat. _ __   
_ “You always call a b-boat, she.” _ __   
_ “She? Thanks, Billy.” Georgie hugs his brother. “See you later.”  _ _   
_ __ “Bye.”

Fate was shifted uncomfortably up by the screen, looking oddly apologetic and tense. 

_ Georgie runs out of the room, grabbing his walkie-talkie on the way there. He races outside. Bill looks out the window down at him as the little boy in the yellow raincoat waves.  _

_Bill lifts his walkie-talkie to his face. “Be careful.”__  
_ Georgie made a face. “You’re bein’ **weird**, Billy.”

Bill got a sick feeling in his stomach. 

_ Georgie sets the boat in the water and races after it, giggling. He ducks under a barrier but hits the next one, sitting down hard and rubbing his head. The boat races onward and he gets up again, only to see the boat slip into the sewers.  _

“Aw.” Georgie pouted. 

_“No! No! Bill's gonna kill me.” He crouches and looks down into the sewers. Then jumps back as a pair of eyes appear in the sewer. A clown moves into view.__  
_ “Oh shit!” Richie yelped. 

Look. 

Look. He was scared of clowns  **before** that jumpscare. 

Bill dug his fingers into his shirt, tensing. 

“Is that the monster?” Bev asked. 

Fate nodded. 

Everyone stilled, tense. A monster in the sewers, waiting to… 

To what? 

_“Hiya Georgie. What a nice boat… Do you want it back?” He holds up the boat. Georgie hesitates.__  
_ “Georgie, don’t talk to strangers.” Sharon pleaded. 

“Yeah, it’s never a good idea to talk to a clown in the sewers that somehow knows your name.” Fate remarked. 

“How about ‘it’s never a good idea to talk to a clown’?” Richie suggested. 

“Yeah, but somehow not everyone is scared of clowns.” Fate replied. 

_“Yes please.”__  
__“You look like a nice boy. I bet you have a lot of friends.”__  
__Georgie begins to smile. “Three, but my brother is the bestest.”___  
Several teachers and other adults cooed, though at this point everyone but Patrick Hockstetter felt extremely uneasy. 

Patrick, who had murdered his own baby brother, was just curious if the clown was going to kill Georgie, and if so, how.

_ “Where's he?” _ __   
_ “In bed... sick.” Georgie’s smile disappears. _ _   
_ __ “I bet I could cheer him up. I'll give him a balloon. Do you want a balloon too Georgie?”

_“I'm not supposed to take stuff from strangers.”__  
__“Oh well, I'm Pennywise, dancing clown. Pennywise yes meet Georgie. Georgie meet Pennywise. Now we are not strangers, are we?”___  
“Never fall for this trick, children.” Fate announced. “Just because you know someone’s name doesn’t make you two not strangers. Classic trick used by pedophiles, kidnappers, and monsters.”

“You hear that?” a mother murmured to her daughter. 

“Mama, I’m ten! I know!” the little girl whined. 

_ Georgie giggles. _

_ “What are you doing in the sewer?” he asks innocently. _ _   
_ _ “A storm blew me away. Blew the whole circus away. Can you smell the circus, Georgie? There are peanuts, cotton candy… Hot dogs… annnnnnd…” Pennywise waits. _

_“Popcorn?” Georgie asks.__  
__“Popcorn! Is that your favorite?”___  
And now, everyone was silent with horror- at least, if they were old enough to understand how brilliantly this monster was manipulating this child. 

The Denbroughs were shaking. 

_ “Uh huh.” _ _   
_ _ “Mine too! Because they pop. Pop, pop, pop.” _

_ Georgie giggles. “Pop, pop, pop. Pop!” he repeats, before glancing around.  _

_A woman emerges from her house, tugs at the blinds on her porch, sees Georgie- goes back inside.__  
_ “What the fuck?” an angry Zach demanded. The woman in question just looked surprised and confused. 

“The monster can affect adults.” Fate explained. “It targets children but can ensure that adults don’t interfere.”

“So what you’re saying is, we won’t do anything about any of what happens in the movie?” Maggie asked. 

“Exactly.” 

_ “I should get going now.” Georgie says.  _ _   
_ _ “Without your boat?” Pennywise asks. “You don't want to lose it Georgie. Bill's gonna kill you.  _

“N-n-no, I wouldn’t!” Bill protested. 

_ Here. Take it. Take it, Georgie.” _

_ Georgie reaches out- Pennywise pulls it back a little- eyes going in opposite directions, mouth opening, teeth sharp fangs, gums emerging, covered in teeth-  _

“No!” Bill yelped, wrapping his arms around Georgie. Sharon gasped, eyes wide with shock and horror. Zach flinched and wrapped an arm around his wife.  **Please, please, let Georgie get away, please...**

_ Pennywise clamps down on Georgie’s arm and rips it off. Georgie turns away, tries to crawl away, screaming and crying. _

“NO!” Sharon cried, while Bill squeezed Georgie tightly. He had enough presence of mind to turn his little brother’s head away from the screen, but too late. 

_ A long white hand emerges from the sewers and grabs Georgie’s boot. The child is pulled into the sewers, vanishing- his cry echoes.  _ _   
_ _ “Help! Billy!” _

Bill swallowed hard, but he couldn’t keep from crying. Eddie wrapped an arm around him while the Denbrough parents launched off of their own couch and rushed to their sons, sobbing. Richie and Stan had somehow ended up holding hands and did not intend to stop anytime soon, especially if they featured. 

“I think- perhaps we should take a break.” Fate said, eyeing the Denbrough family. Several other people looked sick and horrified, and most of the younger children had burst into shrill tears. 

A white-faced Maggie nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.” She hurried over to the Denbroughs and set about trying to comfort them. 

“Is this gonna get worse?” Arlene wanted to know, glancing at her quietly-crying son. Bev was awkwardly trying to comfort the boy she barely knew, as was Mike. 

Fate looked at Arlene. Glanced at the couch with Ben, Bev, and Mike. Turned to the couch with Richie, Stan, Eddie, and Bill (and the other three, sobbing, Denbroughs). 

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this would be a good place to pause, because the beginning scene is fucked up and no one wants to watch their younger sibling die a horrible painful death, or their child, or their friend, or anyone really.   
Hope you all enjoyed! I should get a new chapter out sometime next week.  
(Sophie fucking comment i saw your username in the kudos comment you coward)


	3. School’s Out! (mostly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids get out of school! In the movie, that is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoy this! I’m glad so many people like it!

It took some time for the room to settle down and for Fate to quiet everyone.   
“I’m going to play the movie again.” she said solemnly. “It doesn’t get better but it’s not quite as… never mind.” 

This was decidedly unhelpful for absolutely anyone’s nerves. 

_ The sewers. Through the sewers with eerie singing and then the word IT written in blood in the air. Then out into the open air, over the Kenduskeag, and…  _

“What the fuck?” Richie asked. 

“I  **told** you all it was a movie! It’s formatted as a movie!” Fate protested. 

_ The scene shifts to where goats and sheep are being herded into corrals. Mike is standing at one end, holding a gun aimed at one of the goats, hand shaking. His grandfather is speaking. _

Mike’s eyes widened. He had assumed at best (or worst) he might occasionally appear in the background. Not… actually appear.

“I should probably tell you guys who this focuses on, shouldn’t I.” Fate glanced over the crowd. “Obviously Bill, and Richie. And Mike. And Stan Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak, Beverly Marsh, and Ben Hanscom.”

Arlene glanced nervously toward her son. 

Ben visibly paled. Bev squirmed, frowning. Six boys and her.  **Daddy’s not gonna like that.** Just a glance toward her father told her that much. 

Stan groaned and glanced at Eddie, who just rolled his eyes. Because  **of course** they were heavily involved. Of-fucking-course. 

_ “Pull it, Mike. Go on now, pull it.” _

_Mike doesn’t move. His grandfather snatches the gun and shoots the goat. He hands the gun to another man. “Here, reload it.” He turns to Mike. “You need to start takin' more responsibility around here, Mike. Your dad was younger than you when…”__  
_ “Jesus Christ.” Fate muttered. 

Mike cringing, shrinking in his seat. 

_“I'm not my dad, okay?” Mike snaps. __  
__“Yeah. Look at me, son. Look at me!” Mike looks up reluctantly. His grandfather continues. “There are two places you can be in this world. You can be here like us or you can be there…” he points at the goats. “Like them. If you waste your time hemming and hawing, then someone else is gonna make that choice for you. Except you won’t know it until you feel that bolt between your eyes.” He points at Mike. ___  
“I hope you know that’s kind of an awkward analogy to make.” Fate told him. 

Leroy’s eyes narrowed. “He’s my grandson.” 

Mike closed his eyes and desperately hoped to melt into the couch. 

_ The scene cuts to a school hallway, where Bill, Eddie, and Richie are moving through the crowds. Eddie is talking. _

_“There is a church full of Jews. And Stan has to take the super Jew-y test.”__  
_ Stan facepalmed. “It’s a **bar mitzvah**, Eddie.” 

“Well, sorry I don’t know what the f- what that means!” Eddie retorted shrilly. 

_“But how does it work?” Bill asks.__  
__“They slice the tip of his dick off.”___  
“That is **not true**, Edward.” 

Eddie scowled at Stan. 

_“But then you'll have nothing left!”__  
__“It is true.”__  
__Stan emerges from a classroom and hustles over, calling, “Wait, you guys!”__  
__“Hey, Stan, what happens at the mitzvah anyways?” Richie asks.__  
__“Ed says you slice the tip of the d-d-d-dick off.” Bill adds.__  
__Richie snickers.“Yes, Rabbi's gonna pull down your pants. And he will tell the crowd: ‘Where's the beef?’.” ___  
Donald slowly, quietly, inhaled deeply and stared at the screen. 

_ Stan is not amused. “At the bar mitzvah, I read from the Torah… and then I make a speech, and suddenly I become a man.” _ __   
_ They turn a corner and Richie declares, “There's more funner ways to become a man.” _ _   
_ __ “‘More fun ways’, you mean.” Stan corrects. 

Richie pouted at Stan. “You always do that!”

“Your grammar always needs correcting.”

“ **Ouch** , Staniel.” 

“That’s not my name, Richie.” 

“Yes, it is!” Richie grinned at Stan. 

_ They pass the Bowers Gang- “Shit.” _

_ As they walk past, the gang watches them, Hockstetter and Belch both grinning. Hockstetter licks his lips. _

Richie’s brow furrowed. “Uh, that’s kinda creepy.” 

Patrick stared at him. 

Richie squirmed, suddenly even more uncomfortable. 

_The kids get past and keep walking quickly. __  
__“Do you think they'll sign my yearbook?” Richie asks. “‘Dear Richie… sorry for taking a hot, steaming dump in your backpack last month. Have a good summer’.”___  
“Excuse me?” Maggie demanded. “Is this why you keep needing new glasses?”

“...yeah?” 

Maggie glowered in the direction of the Bowers Gang. 

_ They pass Greta Keene, who makes for the bathroom, camera following her as she marches down a hallway into the bathroom, where her minions are already busy, one prepping a garbage bag for- something. Greta marches up to a stall door and kicks it, startling Beverly, who’s inside, smoking.  _

Several teachers and Bev’s father all turned to her at once. 

“You were  **smoking** on  **school grounds** ?!” a teacher demanded. 

“Oh, sure, that’s the problem.” Fate snarked quietly.

“Bevvie.” Alvin said dangerously and Bev flinched. 

“Can we go on now?” Fate asked, raising an eyebrow. Alvin scowled and turned back to 

the screen. 

_ “Are you in there by yourself, Beaver-ly. Or do you have half the guys in the school with you, huh slut? I know you're in there, you little shit, I can smell you. No wonder you don't have any friends.” Greta yells. _

“Jesus.” Mike whispered. Maybe he  **didn’t** want to go to school. 

_Bev puts out her cigarette. “Which is it, Greta? Am I a slut or a little shit. Make up your mind.”__  
_ Bev swallowed, reminding herself that this was just stupid name-calling. 

_ “You're trash. We just wanted to remind you.”  _

_Bev lifts her backpack over her head just in time as they dump the contents of a garbage can onto her. __  
_ “Gross!” several girls shrieked. Bev groaned, lowering her face into her hands. They’d never done **that** before. 

_ “Such a loser. At least now you'll smell better.” _ __   
_ “Oh Gross.” someone hisses. _ _   
_ __ “Let's go girls.” Greta says. “Have a nice summer, Beaver-ly.”

_ As they leave, Greta snickers. “Pathetic.” _

“You’re the pathetic one, Greta.” Bev snapped. “You go around trying to make everybody else feel small ‘cause you know already that you’re the small one.” 

Greta gaped at her. Bev had never really clapped back when someone else had made a comment, but she was feeling a little bit more confident right now- Greta was all the way across the room and there were a lot of adults in here. Plus a goddess who seemed to at least somewhat be on Bev’s side here. 

_ Outside, Bill, Richie, Eddie, and Stan are dumping the contents of their backpacks into the trash.  _

_“The best feeling ever.” Stan says. __  
__Richie glances at him. “Yeah? Try tickling your pickle for the first time.”___  
“Gross.” Eddie whined. “Richie, why do you do that?” 

Richie just shrugged, a grin starting to form across his face. He opened his mouth- 

“Don’t you dare, Trashmouth.” Stan hissed. Richie closed his mouth and pouted. 

_“What do you guys wanna do tomorrow?” Eddie asks. __  
__“I start my training.” Richie replies.__  
__“What training?”__  
__“Street Fighter.”__  
__“Is that how you want to spend your summer, stuck in an arcade.”__  
__“Better than inside your mother.”___  
Sonia looked horrified at the very notion. Honestly, Richie was too, but this was his go-to to deal with feelings he was pretty sure were gay. 

Annoy his crush. By pretending that he was fucking said crush’s mother. 

Yeah, a really good way to deal with it. 

_ “What if we go to the quarry?” _ __   
_ “Guys, we can g-go to the barrens.” Bill offers.  _ _   
_ __ “Right.”

“Why would you go to the barrens?” Sharon asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Bill shrugged. “D-dunno.” 

_They all glance towards a police car. A woman stands in front of it, scanning the crowds. __  
__“Betty Ripsom's mom.”__  
__“Does she really expect to see her coming out of the school?”__  
__“I don't know.”__  
__“As if Betty Ripsom's been hiding in Home Ec for the last few weeks.” Eddie says.___  
“No.” Mrs. Ripsom breathed, horrified. The entire town stilled. A second death? 

_“Do you think they'll actually find her?”__  
__“Sure. In a ditch. All decomposed, covered in worms and maggots, smelling… like Eddie's mom's underwear.” Richie says. ___  
“Richard!” Maggie snapped. Richie shrank. 

“It hasn’t happened yet!” he protested. 

“Then consider this me preemptively ensuring that you won’t say that,  **ever** .”

_ “Shut up!” Eddie snaps. _ __   
_ “Gross.” Stan mutters.  _ __   
_ “She's not dead. She m-m-m-missing.” Bill says firmly. _ __   
_ “Sorry Bill, she's missing.” Richie says softly. Then, louder: “You know the barrens aren't that bad. Who doesn't love splashing around in shitty water.” _ _   
_ __ Then someone grabs the back of Richie’s bag and yanks him backward. He crashes into Stan and they both fall to the ground. Stan’s yamaka is snatched by Patrick Hockstetter. 

_ “Nice frisbee, flamer.” he says, holding it up. _ _   
_ _ “Give it back.” Stan gets up.  _

Stan cringed as his parents both straightened, looking pissed. 

_ Hockstetter tosses it toward a bus.  _ __   
_ “Fuckin' losers.” _ _   
_ __ “Loser.”

_The Bowers Gang starts to leave. __  
__“You s-s-s-suck, Bowers.” Bill yells. ___  
“Do you have a death wish?” Richie asked Bill incredulously. “I mean, in the future.”

“I d-d-don’t know!” Bill protested. 

“He kinda does.” Fate said thoughtfully. “I mean, he goes a little bit crazy.”

“Great.” Bill huffed. 

_ “Shut up, Bill.” Eddie whispers. _ _   
_ _ Bowers slowly turns. “Did you s-s-s-say something, B-b-b-b-Billy.”  _

“Now that’s just cruel!” Sharon cried, frowning. 

By the end of this movie, if Henry Bowers wasn’t eviscerated by angry parents and adult family members, it would be a surprise. 

_ Bill stares at him. Bowers glares.  _ _   
_ _ “You got a free ride this year cuz of your little brother. Ride's over, Denbrough. This summer its gonna be a hurt-train, for you and your faggot friends.” He stands menacingly right in front of Bill, then spots his father. Licks his hand and wipes it on Bill’s face. Walks away. _

Butch was glowering at his son. 

“Oh that’s so  **gross** -” Eddie fretted. Stan patted his shoulder. 

_ The Bowers Gang get into their car.  _ __   
_ “I wish he'd go missing.” Richie grumbles, coming to stand next to Bill. _ _   
_ __ “He's probably the one doing it.” Eddie says darkly.

“Now, you all know he’s not, but it’s really not a bad guess.” Fate remarked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m doing short chapters so I get them out faster and don’t end up burning out and leaving you hanging for almost a year. Hope you all enjoyed!


	4. School’s Out! (finally) And It Fucks with Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally reach the first few Encounters and Stan’s dad decides to get rid of a painting. Plus, Richie accidentally insults his future self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don’t ask why I capitalized encounters. I don’t know.

_Over by the bike racks, Ben is fumbling with his bike and a project. Beverly emerges from the school, hesitates- she needs to get past him._ _  
_

Oh great. Ben sighed. Of course this was how he was introduced. 

_“Will you let me go by? Or is there a secret password or something?”_ _  
_ _Ben looks up. “Sorry.”_

Bev bit her lip. Why exactly was some little interaction with her classmate important enough to end up in here? Sure, the thing with Mike the homeschooled kid didn’t seem plot vital, but the other kids’ interaction dropped important information. 

_ “Sorry is not…” She winces as he drops the project, grabs for his bike- it falls. “Password.” she finishes. Watches him for a moment. He gets his stuff. She speaks again. “Henry and his goons are over by the west entrance. So you should be fine.” _

“Why wouldn’t he be fine?” Arlene demanded, glaring at Fate. 

Who suddenly looked very uncomfortable. 

“Ah, well, yeah, uh, you’ll find out.” she said hastily. 

_“I wasn't…” Ben trails off. _ __  
_“Everyone knows he's looking for you.” She glances at his headphones. “Whatchu listening to?” She grabs them and puts them on. _ _  
_ _“New Kids on the Block. I don't even like them, I was just.” Ben stops. She pulls them off and handed them back to him, smiling._

“New Kids on the Block?” Victor Criss sneered. “What a loser.” 

Ben shrank. 

“Hey! None of that.” Fate scolded. “You keep up the bullying and I’m removing your mouth.” 

“You can do that?” Richie blurted, eyes wide. 

“Yep!” Fate replied. “And I will.” 

“Maybe she should do it to you.” muttered Bowers. 

_ “Wait. You're the new kid, right? Now I get it.” _   
_ “There's nothing to get.” he says, trying to put the headphones back on. _   
_ “I'm just messing with you. I'm Beverly Marsh.” _ _   
Ben smiles. “I know that because we're in the same class. Social Studies. And you were…” He trails off. “I'm Ben. But almost everyone calls me…”_

_ “The new kid. Well, Ben, there are worse things to be called.” She glances at his yearbook, sticking out of his backpack. “Let me sign this.” _

_She snags it and grabs a pen, holding the lid in her teeth. She flips the yearbook open and stops, seeing the blank pages. Then she signs it, drawing three hearts under her name. “Stay cool, Ben from Soc class.” She gives it back. _ _   
_

Ben’s eyes widened. He’d barely been holding out hope that he might make friends- he’d never had friends before, why should that change in a new town? But maybe… 

_ “Yeah. You too, Beverly.” he manages. _   
_ “Hang tough, new kid on the block.” she calls, walking away. _   
_ “‘Please don't go girl.’ That's the name of another New Kids on the Block song.” He trails off awkwardly, then puts the project on top of his handlebars and walks his bike away, the headphones trailing after on the ground. _ _   
Bill is walking his bike home, talking to himself._

_ “He thrusts his fists against the post. He thrusts his fists against the… Shit. P-p-post.” _

Bill winced. Several couches away, Bowers and his gang were mocking him, stuttering in a ridiculous, over-the-top, and extremely fake manner. 

_ He wheels his bike into the garage and stops, seeing his father. _ _   
_ _ “Need some help?” _

_“I thought we agreed.” his father says, looking at a bunch of tubes set up to mimic the sewer system._ _  
_

“Agreed to what?” Zach asked. 

Fate winced. “If you wait… you’ll find out. I think some of you are gonna be pissed at yourselves by the end of this.” 

Zach frowned. That… was not remotely comforting. 

_ “Before you say anything…” Bill races over and picks up an army man toy. _   
_ “Bill.” _   
_ “Let me show you something first.” Bill puts the toy into the tubes and grabs the hose, running water through it. “The barrens. It is the only place where Georgie could have ended.” the toy tumbles into a tray labeled ‘THE BARRENS’. _   
_ “He's gone, Bill.” _   
_ “But if the storm swept Georgie in, we should have gone…” _ _   
“HE'S GONE, HE'S DEAD! He's dead! There is nothing we can do! Nothing! Now take this down before your mother sees it. Next time you want to take something from my office… Ask.” _

Zach flinched, eyes widening. 

Bill stared at the screen, throat closing up. 

_ Zachary Denbrough takes down the map and walks away. _

_Bill stares silently after him, then glances at the hamster. _ _  
_ _“I guess you get your tunnels back.”_

The reaction to his father’s angry shouting was pretty telling of how things must have changed since Georgie’s death. 

_ The scene cuts to Mike wheeling his bike to a stop in front of the store. Then, as he starts to pull meat out of the basket, he spots the Bowers Gang. _

“Shit.” Mike mumbled quietly. 

_ “Get in.” one of them yells to someone. _ _   
_ _ He wheels his bike away, fast. Into an alley next to the store. Hides behind some boxes as the car passes. _

“Why are you hiding, Mike?” Leroy asked, frowning. Mike squirmed.

_ “Oh, Jesus.” he mumbles. _

_ He starts to pull meat out again. _

_ The chain at the door rattles. He looks up as a faint snarl sounds. The door dislodges as Mike watches- tries to open. It stops as the chain is across it. _

“Oh, shit!” Richie yelped, recognizing the similarities. 

_ Dark hands slip out at the opening. More hands. Voices- _

_ “Mike. Hurry up, son! Help! I'm burning! Mike.” Flames appearing, heat and smoke and screams while Mike watches with obvious distress. He approaches, slowly. _

Mike clamped his hands over his ears, tensing, trying desperatly to stop thinking for a moment, not let the memories take over. 

“Jeez, Homeschool, dontcha ever watch horror movies?” Richie cried, trying to lighten the mood. “You never walk toward the creepy thing!” 

Mike blinked. 

Stan elbowed Richie. 

Fate, strangely enough, started laughing. 

_ The hands disappear. _ _   
_ _ He steps back. _

_ The door opens. Something is hanging, twisting, behind the plastic strips at the far end of the room. Making animalistic sounds of distress. Mike backs up. _

“Oh, holy shit!” Richie yelped. Mike tensed again. 

_ A human head becomes faintly, vaguely visible and Mike gasps. _

_ A hand lifts in greeting and a pair of yellow eyes open. _

_ The spell is broken by a car racing toward Mike, who leaps backward. It stops. _ _   
_ _ “Stay the fuck out of my town!” Henry Bowers yells, flinging something at Mike, who flinches and lifts his hands. _

“Ah, the irony!” Fate said dramatically. “Henry Bowers saves Mike Hanlon’s life!” 

Bowers looked **pissed**. Mike was just uncomfortable. 

_ The car skids onward. _

_Then Mike’s grandfather steps out of the store._ _  
_ _“Mike? Are you okay, son?”_

Fate started laughing again. Nobody could really blame her. Honestly, Richie was on the verge of hysterical laughter too, and one or two others. 

_ The scene cuts to the synagogue. Stan is sitting with the Torah. His father enters. _

_“You're not studying, Stanley. How's it gonna look… The rabbi's son can't finish his own Torah reading. Take the book to my office. Obviously you're not using it.”_ _  
_

Stan flinched. Maybe he wasn’t the most studious person when it came to his religion, but… 

Donald frowned. He had a bad feeling about this. 

_ Stan enters the office, putting a hand next to his face so he can’t see the painting on the wall. He hesitates and glances at it. It’s crooked. He walks over and straightens it quickly, then moves to the shelf and slides the Torah onto it. _

God, Stan hated that fucking painting so much. 

_ A clatter sounds behind him and he freezes, then turns. The painting has fallen to the floor. He crosses to it and picks it up, putting it back on the wall. _

_ Then he stops dead. The canvas is empty. _

“Oh shit!” Richie yelped. Stan tensed, eyes widening. Donald and Andrea gripped each other’s hands tightly. 

_ A door creaks open- he turns. Shrill flute music echoes from inside the other room. Stan stares silently, wide-eyed with fear. _

_ The viewer can see someone behind him, holding a long flute. The long pale hands open and the flute clatter loudly to the ground. _

_ Stan whips around- the woman from the painting smiles at him with sharp teeth as sounds build up- he runs, out, slamming the office door behind him, with a scream. _

“See, that’s the **smart** thing to do.” Fate remarked. “Run the fuck away.”

Stan looked down at his hands. They were trembling. 

“I’m getting rid of that painting.” Donald muttered. 

“Yeah, by the end of this you’re **really** gonna hate it.” Fate replied. 

“Great.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you all know why she started laughing when richie said not to walk toward the creepy thing  
Hope you all enjoyed this!


	5. To the Barrens and Ben in the Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the title says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the last chapter for a little while, guys. No, I’m not abandoning this, but some shit went down today. Full explanation in the end notes.

_ The scene cuts to Eddie’s house, the kitchen, where Bill and Richie are stocking up from the cupboards. _

_“Take everything but the delicious deals, guys. My mom loves them.” Eddie says. A beat. “Hey, first you said the barrens and now you're saying the sewer.” He glances around and lowers his voice. “I mean, if we get caught?”__  
_ “Why would my Eddie-bear go into the SEWERS?!” Sonia cried shrilly. 

Eddie squirmed. 

“Friendship is a hell of a drug.” Fate replied. “Honestly, that’s gonna be the go-to for most of your ‘why’ questions.” 

_ “We won't, Eds.” Richie says. _

_ “The sewers are public works. We are the public, aren't we?” Bill says.  _

_“Eddie, are these your birth control pills?” Richie calls from another cabinet.__  
__“Yes, I'm saving it for your sister.” Eddie storms over and slams the cupboard. “This is private stuff.”___  
Eddie flushed angrily. Richie always managed to get a rise out of him, no matter what, and it was ridiculous. 

Richie, on Stan’s other side, snickered quietly. 

_ They walk toward the door, the TV playing in the background. _

_“Hello, welcome to The Children's Hour Derry.”__  
__“Eddie, dear, where you boys off to in such a rush?” Mrs. Kaspbrak asks from her chair.__  
__On the TV: “Our word of the day is ‘clown’. They know what it means!”___  
“What is going on with that show?” Arlene asked. 

“It’s just The Children’s Hour.” Sonia replied. 

Arlene frowned at her. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, it seems strange that the word of the day just happens to be ‘clown’. And nothing is shown in a movie if it isn’t somehow important. And you’re not a child.” 

Sonia huffed. 

“Well said.” Fate applauded. “You’ll find out more about that show later.” 

_ Bill speaks. “Uhm, just m-m-my ho- my backyard, Mrs. K. I got a new…” he stops. _ _   
_ _ Richie glances at him. “A new croquet set. Jeez spit it out B-b-b-Bill.” _

Bill reddened, hating his stupid stutter more than ever, and rather thankful to Richie for defusing it. 

_Mrs. Kaspbrak stares at them. “Okay. Oh and sweetie, don't go rolling around in the grass, especially if it's just been cut. You know how bad your allergies can get.”__  
__“Yes mom.” Eddie says. “Come on.”__  
__“Aren't you forgetting something?” Mrs. Kaspbrak asks. Eddie hesitates, then walks over and kisses her cheek. ___  
Eddie reddened when Richie started snickering again. “Stop that!” 

“Stop what?” Richie asked innocently. Eddie glared at him. Stan was starting to seriously regret staying in between them. 

_ “Water surrounds us. Even it is upon us. They do not believe me? Try it at home. Whenever you are outside…” the TV says.  _ _   
_ _ Eddie heads back over to the other boys.  _

_“Do you want one from me too, Mrs. K?” Richie calls.__  
__“No.” Eddie says firmly, pushing the other two out. “Sorry mommy.” he adds over his shoulder.___  
Eddie turned bright red, not quite sure who to glare at: Richie, for making those stupid jokes, Fate, for making them watch this, or the kids who were snickering. 

_ The scene cuts to Ben writing on a postcard. Crafting a beautiful poem.  _

_“‘Your hair is winter fire,__  
__January embers...__  
__My heart burns there too.’”___  
“Oh.” Ben mumbled, turning bright red. Bev glanced at him and smiled a little bit. He seemed sweet, and the poem was really sweet, too. Definitely kinder than anything anybody else had ever said to her. 

Meanwhile, Alvin Marsh was stewing. 

_ And then Bill, Richie, Eddie, and Stan on their bikes.  _

_“Slower!”__  
__“Hi-yo Silver awaaay!”__  
__“Let's move on!”__  
__“Your old lady bike's too fast for us.”___  
Most of the parents exchanged smiles at this little scene of the boys biking off past the library. 

_ In the library- _

_ “Found it.” The librarian set the book down next to Ben. “Isn't it summer vacation? I'd think you'd be ready to take a break from the books.” _

_“I like it in here.”__  
__“A boy should be spending his summer outside with his friends. Don't you have any friends?”___  
Ben frowned. He had never had any friends, really. 

He firmly shoved away the thought of  **maybe** .

_ “Can I have the book now?” Ben asks. She walks away, leaving him with the book. He starts to read it. _

_ Flipping fast through the pages as it slowly zooms on a picture of a boy’s head in a tree- Ben slams the book shut. Then he sees the balloon- a red balloon floating through the room, through a door. He gets up and follows it, only to see an Easter egg on the floor. He looks past it and sees another one. He follows the trail of Easter eggs all the way into an archive room, where he picks up the last one.  _

Now everyone was super tense, watching as Ben followed the trail, so painfully obviously walking into the monster’s trap. 

Arlene’s fingers were digging into the couch. Ben was watching with wide eyes. 

_ A footstep sounds. He turns. A person descends the stairs. Stops before anything above the shoulders can become visible. Steps down.  _

The tension in the room was quickly ratcheting up. 

_ It’s a headless body.  _

“Shit!” several people yelped, while Ben froze and paled, eyes widening. 

_ Then it starts descending faster and- a clown head can briefly be seen, the clown speaks: “Egg boy!” _

_And then the headless body is chasing Ben through the library and then he crashes into the librarian. __  
_ “Oh, thank God.” Arlene gasped, hand pressed against her chest. 

_ “What on Earth are you doing?” she demands. He stares at her.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. This chapter is super short and kinda late, but I am so stuck on the next scene and my roommate decided to change rooms without telling me until the last second. Literally as she was taking her stuff out of the room. Being a sensitive person, I spent the next hour or so watching mindless YouTube and crying. I’m going to work on the next scene, I promise, but I didn’t want to keep you all waiting for weeks without knowing what’s going on.   
Please give me nice comments, I need them.


	6. the Bowers Gang and the beginning of the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben gets attacked- again. This time by something entirely different. Meanwhile, Bill drags the others to the sewers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M BACK  
So! Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter except the person who asked me to update soon!  
Seriously, I got so many lovely, supportive comments and I’m so grateful. I found a playlist of YouTube clips covering pretty much the entire movie, so I should be good with having something to refer back to, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble with scenes now.  
I should go back to updating more frequently now. Roommate situation still isn’t resolved, but I’m still trying to contact the hall director.  
Enjoy!

After It’s attack on Ben, nobody thought it could get any worse. Right? 

Right? 

_ Now Ben is leaving, hurrying out the library doors, tucking the postcard into his pocket. He walks- stops and turns and sees Bowers. _ _   
_

“Oh, shit.” Richie said. “Nice knowing ya, new kid.” 

“Richie!” Stan hissed while Ben paled. 

_ “Where you off to, Tits?” _

_ Ben starts running only to be quickly caught. _ _   
_

Ben winced while the Bowers Gang started laughing. Arlene straightened, eyeing the bullies with a scowl. 

_ Chaos follows as the Bowers Gang manhandles him onto the Kissing Bridge. _

_ “Got ya!” _   
_ “Wait.” _   
_ “Hold him.” _

Ben flinched watching himself trying to escape. Note to self: whatever he’d done to gain Bowers’ wrath, don’t do it this time.

_ “Leave me alone!” Ben screams. _   
_ “Hit him.” _   
_ “You will not escape.” _   
_ “Help!” Ben yells. _   
_ “Hold him! Hold him, Hockstetter. Grab him, Belch.” _   
_ “Leave me alone.” _ _   
“Look all that blubber. I'm gonna light his hair like Michael Jackson.” Hockstetter says, lifting a can of compressed air and lighter and flicking both, sending a stream of flame at Ben, just above his head. Criss and Belch, holding Ben’s arms, flinch and shoot Hockstetter dirty looks. _

“Jesus Christ!” Richie yelped. Ben froze, eyes widening. Arlene shifted in her seat to give Hockstetter a menacing stare. 

Hockstetter seemed entirely unbothered. 

_ “Hold him.” Bowers snaps, holding a knife in one hand. _   
_ “Get off me, get off me. Help! Help!” Ben yells after a car. The car keeps going, the passenger looking at them without reacting. A red balloon rises in the backseat. _

“What the f-fuck?” Bill asked, eyes wide. 

“It.” Fate said ominously. 

_ Bowers hits Ben several times- a ringing sound starts up and Bowers’ voice is muffled. _

_ “Okay, new kid.” His voice becomes clear once more. “This is why us locals call this the kissing bridge. It's for two things: Sucking face… and cutting names.” He lifts his switchblade and pops the blade out. _ _   
_

“Oh, **fuck**.” Richie breathed. Eddie, pale-faced, shook his head. Bowers had always been crazy, but this was a whole new level. 

“Henry.” Butch growled from his own seat.

_ “Henry, please.” Ben begs. _ _   
_ _ Henry lowers the knife to Ben’s belly and cuts a line into it. Ben screams. Henry starts in on a horizontal line. _

_ As Ben screams, Hockstetter makes deranged expressions of delight. _

“Frankly, aside from the screaming, his face the whole time was the most disturbing part.” Fate remarked. 

_ Henry carves a third line in, making an ‘H’. _

_ “Stop! Henry!” Belch yelps, startled. _ _   
_ _ “Shut up!” Bowers bellows. “I'm gonna carve my whole name into his cottage cheese.” _

“That’s it!” Arlene shouted, standing up. Ben cringed. 

“Mom-” he tried, face red. 

“Hey, Mrs. Hanscom.” Fate spoke up. “Maybe you should wait? There’s a lot more bullshit he does, and I think it’d be best to wait until after the second movie.” 

“Wait, second movie?” Maggie asked. 

“Oops.” Fate hesitated. “Yeah, there’s a Chapter Two. Takes place when they’re adults. We’ll watch it after this movie. It’s gonna be… rough.” 

Before anyone could respond, she started the movie again. 

_ Ben stares at him for a moment, nose bleeding. Then he slams his feet into Bowers’ crotch and flips himself over the side of the bridge, falling to the ground below and getting up to run. _

“That’s cool!” Bev said, smiling at Ben. He blushed red and smiled. 

Henry, meanwhile, scowled darkly in Ben’s direction. 

_ “I'm gonna cut your fucking tits off. I swear to god!” Bowers shouts, running to the side of the bridge and jumping down. _ _   
_

Ben’s smile faded. Bev briefly touched his shoulder reassuringly. 

_ The other three follow. _

_ Ben tumbles down the side of the hill, hearing shouts from above. One of them, probably Hockstetter, cackles. _

_ “Get him! Come on! Get him!” _   
_ “You can't run!” _ _   
“No. We must find the fatso. My knife. My old man will kill me-” Bowers scrabbles in the leaves, before glancing up at Hockstetter and Belch. “You two, get him!” _

Butch glowered at his son. Henry squirmed and glared in Ben’s direction. New kid was gonna fucking get it once this was over. 

They were all gonna fucking get it. 

_ They run off. Criss hovers uncertainly, and Bowers turns on him. “Come on! Move your fucking ass!” _

_ Criss hastily starts searching the leaves. _

_ Ben meanwhile is running through the trees. He hesitates next to a sewer pipe, the kind with grating over it. _

_ As he runs to the right, the camera remains focused on the pipe. _

“Why’s it doing that?” asked Greta. 

“Uh… ‘cause that’s where It lives?” Fate replied. “I mean, you saw It in the sewers before, remember?” 

_ Hockstetter and Belch near where a path divides- silently, Hockstetter points to the right. Belch runs off and Hockstetter takes the other path. _

_ Ben runs through the river, hopping from stone to stone. _

_ The scene cuts away. _ _   
_ _ Bill, Richie, Eddie, and Stan are approaching the sewer entrance. _

“Oh, is he gonna run into us?” Eddie asked. 

“You’ll see.” Fate replied. 

_ “That's poison ivy. And that's poison ivy. And that's poison ivy.” Stan points to different places. _   
_ “Where? Where's the poison ivy?” Eddie asks nervously. _ _   
“Nowhere, not every fucking plant is poison ivy, Stanley.” Richie scoffs. _

Stan scowled at Richie, who just rolled his eyes. 

_ “Ok well I'm starting to get itchy now and I'm pretty sure this is not good for me.” Eddie says. _

“MY Eddie-bear SHOULDN’T be splashing around in a filthy sewer!” Sonia shrieked. 

Eddie flinched, biting his lip. Now his future self had gone and made his mother upset. 

Fate rolled her eyes. “He’ll be covered in even more unsanitary things later on, **ma’am**.” 

Sonia swelled up like a bullfrog, face reddening with rage. 

“Nope. Not listening to you.” Fate put her hands over her ears, smirking. 

_ Bill enters the sewers, looking around. Richie follows, calling over his shoulder. _   
_ “Do you use the same bathroom as your mother?” _   
_ “Sometimes, yeah.” _   
_ “Then you probably have crabs.” _   
_ “That's so NOT funny.” _

“Honestly, I had to Google that.” 

“What the fuck is Google?” Richie asked. 

“I don’t think that’s relevant. Yet.” Fate replied. 

_ “Aren't you guys coming in?” Richie looks at Stan and Eddie. _   
_ “Uh-uh that's gray water.” Eddie shakes his head firmly. _   
_ “What the hell is gray water?” Richie demands. _   
_ “It's basically piss and shit. So I'm just telling you… You guys are splashing around in _   
_ millions of gallons of Derry pee.” _ _   
Richie picks up a stick and sniffs it._

“Richie!” Maggie scolded. 

“Again, I haven’t fucking done that yet!” Richie protested. 

_ “Are, are you serious?” Eddie asks. _   
_ “Doesn't smell like caca to me, Senor.” Richie bellows. _   
_ “O-o-okay I can smell it from here.” Eddie responds. _   
_ “It's probably just your breath wafting back into your face.” _   
_ “Have you ever heard of a staph infection?” _   
_ “I'll show you a "staff" infection.” Richie waves the stick. _

Stan and Bill rolled their eyes. 

_ “That's so unsanitary. These… you guys are like swimming in a toilet bowl right now. Have you ever heard of listeria?” _   
_ “Are you retarded?” _   
_ “You're the reason we're in this situation.” _ _   
Bill keeps moving. He stops- picks up a sneaker. _

“Oh!” Betty lifted a leg, extending it. “I think that’s one of mine.” She blinked, pale-faced, as the implications hit her. 

Her sneaker, in a sewer, all by itself. 

_ “Guys!” _   
_ “Shit. Don't tell me that's…” Stan stops. _   
_ “No. Georgie was wearing galoshes.” Bill says. _   
_ “Who's sneaker is it?” _ _   
Richie steps over. The inside has a name- “It's Betty Ripsom's.”_

Betty’s parents put their arms around her, worried. Was she dead? Almost certainly. 

_ “Shit! Shit, oh god, oh fuck- I don't like this.” Eddie says. _   
_ “How do you think Betty feels… Going around these tunnels with only one fucking shoe.” Richie holds the shoe and hops on one foot. No one smiles, and Richie glances around at their solemn faces, his own smile disappearing. _

Maggie just sighed this time, knowing that Richie hadn’t meant any harm by this, and was probably trying to cover up his own fear. 

_ “What if she's still here?” _   
_ “Eddie, come on!” Richie calls as he and Bill start moving. _   
_ “My mom will have an aneurysm if she finds out we were playing down here. I'm serious.” Eddie responds. “Bill?” _   
_ “If I were Betty Ripsom, I would want us to find me. Georgie too.” _

Betty shifted between her parents. Georgie snuggled closer to Bill, frowning and putting his thumb in his mouth. 

_ “What if I don't want to find them? I mean, no offense, Bill, but I do not want to end up like G-” Eddie hesitates. “I don't want to go missing either.” _   
_ “He has a point.” Stan says. _   
_ “You too?” Bill asks. _ _   
“It's summer… We're supposed to be having fun. This isn't funny. This is scary and disgusting.”_

“And it gets so much worse.” Fate remarked, which wasn’t even remotely comforting. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

_ As Stan speaks, Bill glances at Richie, who shrugs. _

_ And then Ben tumbles into the river, making all of them jump. He tries to get up and falls again. _   
_ “Holy shit, what happened to you?” Richie asks. Ben looks up at them. _

“Oh, thank God.” Arlene muttered, sinking back in her seat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with Stan in between bickering Eddie and Richie, just picture that scene from Stranger Things with Mike in between bickering Lucas and Dustin.  
Jeez, Ben screaming was the worst, I could barely handle watching that clip. Just wanted to mute my computer.  
Is it petty of me to not text my ex-roommate to tell her she forgot her power strip?


	7. A Shit Ton of Stuff Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discussions of everything ranging from death to the modern use of 'daddy' to gender occur.  
Also, pedophilia and general creepiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! And have discovered even more of my ex-roommate’s stuff, including an earring. Soon I’m just gonna passive-aggressively text her a picture of all the stuff I’ve still got in here. 
> 
> TW for Bev's shitty home life and Mr. Keene being creepy. I mean, you knew it was coming...?

_ Patrick Hockstetter arrives too late to see them and ventures into the sewers. He grins, clearly having fun. _

_ A sound echoes down the tunnels and he heads in that direction. _

Fate started cackling, which was incredibly alarming. After all, she had JUST said that the monster lived in the sewers. 

_ “I hear you, tits. Don't think you can stay down here all damn day.” he calls, occasionally clicking his lighter and blasting fire down the tunnels. _

_ And then he sees them. _

_ The dead children, rotting and covered in blood. _   
_ “You found us, Patrick.” _   
_ “You found us, Patrick” _   
_ “Patrick.” _

“Oh, Christ.” someone whispered, wide-eyed. 

Patrick himself had lost some of his previous composure, eyes widening and face paling. 

_ “Fuck.” _ _   
_ _ He runs into view now, covered in blood, injured and terrified. Crashes to the ground. Gets up again, runs- into a grate. He grabs a pipe and turns. _

_ A red balloon floats toward him. Pops. _

“Oh, shit!” someone yelped, and several people clutched at their chests, including Fate, who grumbled about how ‘that damn balloon pop gets to me every time’. 

_ A clown stands behind it. _

_ His scream echoes through the tunnels. _

“No one is safe.” Fate intoned. 

Mrs. Hockstetter started crying. 

Mr. Hockstetter put his arms around his wife. 

Patrick Hockstetter just blinked, staring blankly at the screen. 

_ And then the scene cuts to the boys biking through the woods, into town- Eddie’s talking the whole way. _

_ “I think it's great that we're helping the new kid but we also need to think about our own safety. I mean, he's bleeding all over and you guys know there's an AIDS epidemic happening right now as we speak I mean my mom's friend in New York City got it just by touching a dirty pole in the subway and she got AIDS blood into her system through a hangnail, a hangnail! _

“I hope you know that’s not actually possible, I looked it up.” Fate told Eddie, who blinked. 

“Don’t talk to my Eddie-bear with your nasty lies! Homosexuals spread AIDS everywhere!” Sonia shrieked. “Anyone could catch it from that sort of thing!” 

Fate raised an eyebrow. “I looked through multiple sources. The chances of getting AIDS via **HIV**-infected blood on a dirty pole in the subway through a hangnail are microscopic.” 

_ And they can amputate legs and arms. But how do you amputate a w- how do you amputate a waist?” They skid to a halt in an alleyway. “You know that there are alleys full of AIDS infected needles, right?” He glances at the others. “You know that.” _

“Jeez, Eds, breathe once in a while, huh, it’s a fun thing to do!” Richie said, laughing. Eddie glared at him. _   
_

_ “Richie, wait here. Come on.” Bill walks into the pharmacy with Stan and Eddie. _ _   
_ _ Richie glances down at Ben, who is seated on a crate. _

_ Richie hesitates. “Glad I got to meet you before you died.” _

“Wow, morbid much?” Stan remarked. Richie just shrugged. 

_ Ben blinks at him. _

_ Inside the pharmacy, Eddie is grabbing things off of the shelves. _   
_ “Good.” _   
_ “Can we afford all that?” Bill asks. _   
_ Stan looks down at the money in his hands. “It's all we got.” _   
_ “You kidding me?” Eddie demands. _   
_ “Wait, you have an account here don't you?” Bill asks. _   
“_If my mom finds out I bought all this stuff for myself, I'll spend the whole rest of the week in the emergency room._”

Sonia frowned. Her Eddie-bear, hiding things from her?

_ Bev is standing two aisles over, looking at the tampons and pads. She grabs a box and starts down one aisle over- _ _   
_

Bev froze, flushing red and trying not to look at her dad. 

She could feel his eyes burning into the back of her head. 

Greta snickered. 

_ “See you later, dad. _ _   
_ _ “See ya, Greta.” _

_ Greta Keene is on her way down that aisle. Bev hurries to go down the next aisle, where the boys are. She freezes and holds the box behind her back. _ _   
_

Oh, great. Bev buried her face in her hands. First, the full onset of puberty, then running into BOYS in her grade at school. 

_ “You okay?” Bill asks her. _   
_ “I'm fine, what's wrong with you?” _

Richie started snickering and Bill leaned as far over as he could in order to hit his shoulder. 

_ “None of your business.” Stan says. _   
_ “New kid outside looks like someone killed him.” Eddie adds. _

“Very different things, Eds.” Richie chirped. Eddie whipped around to face him, eyes blazing. 

“DON’T CALL ME EDS!” he cried, red-faced. Richie just grinned. 

_ “We need some s-s-s-supplies but we don't have enough money.” Bill finishes. _

_ Bev considers this, then heads for the counter. _ _   
_

“Oh, boy.” Fate muttered, covering her eyes. 

_ “I like your glasses, Mr. Keene. You look just like Clark Kent.” _   
_ “I don't know about that.” he responds. _

Alvin’s eyes narrowed and he glanced over at Bev, who shrank. 

_ “Can I try them on?” _ _   
_ _ “Sure.” He hands them over. _

Greta sneered at Bev. “The boys at school not enough for you, slut? You gotta flirt with my father too?” 

“Sh- I-” Bev was red-faced and humiliated. 

“Okay, shut it!” Fate snapped. “No fucking slut-shaming here, especially not when it’s **that **far out of line!” 

Greta, surprised, closed her mouth. 

_ She glances at the boys. They back up hastily, and Bill knocks Eddie into a shelf before all three flee the pharmacy. _ _   
_

Mr. Keene went pale, then red, then pissed. Fortunately, he was too terrified of Fate’s threats and Alvin Marsh’s glare to say a word. 

_ “What do you think?” Bev asks, looking at Mr. Keene. _   
_ “Well how about that, you look just like Lois Lane.” _

“Ew.” Richie mumbled, and Mr. Keene glared at him. 

“He’s right, ya know, that is ‘ew’.” Fate remarked. 

_ “Really?” She takes the glasses off. “Well, here you go.” She knocks some things down. “Shoot, I'm so sorry.” _ _   
_

Bev’s eyes widened a little bit. 

_ “It's okay.” he responds, bending to pick it all up. She grabs a pack of cigarettes and tucks it away. _ _   
_

“Bevvie.” Alvin said in a low, dangerous voice. She tensed, hunching her shoulders. She was going to be in so much trouble when this was over. 

_ Outside, Eddie’s kneeling next to Ben. _

_ “Just suck the wound.” Richie says. _

_ “I need to focus right now.” Eddie snaps. _ _   
_

“You know NOTHING about first aid!” Eddie hissed, face turning red. “You can’t- you don’t- SUCK THE WOUND. You IDIOT.” 

“Jeez, Eds, tell me how you really feel, huh?” Richie said, raising his eyebrows and trying to hide the mild hurt that Eddie’s words caused. 

“DON’T CALL ME EDS!” 

_ “You need to focus?” _   
_ “Yeah, can you go get me something? Jesus.” _   
_ “Oh, what do you need?” _   
_ “Go get my bifocals, they're in my second fanny pack.” _   
_ “Why do you have two fanny packs?” _   
_ “I need to focus right now, it's a long story.” _ _   
“I don't want to hear it.”_

_ Meanwhile, Bill has walked out onto the sidewalk. He spots Bev coming down the walk toward him, smiling. He holds up some money as she reaches him. _

Richie opened his mouth to make a joke about Bill’s expression, but Stan whacked his shoulder. 

“Not the time, Richie!” Stan hissed. 

_ “Uhmm, th-th-thanks.” _

_ She holds up the box and winks. “Even Steven.” _   
_ “Oh god, he's bleeding.” comes from the alley. Bev turns and enters, and Bill follows her. _   
_ “Ben from Soc?” she asks. _   
_ “You have to suck the wound before you apply the bandage. It's basic.” Richie says. _

Eddie made an angry noise. Richie huffed. 

_ “You don't know what you're talking about!” Eddie responds. _   
_ “Are you okay, that looks like it hurts.” Bev says, approaching. _   
_ “No, I'm good. I just fell.” Ben says quickly. _   
_ “Yeah, right into Henry Bowers.” Richie adds. _   
_ “Shut it, R-R-Richie!” Bill snaps. _   
_ “Why? It's the truth.” _

“Just ‘cause it’s the truth d-d-doesn’t mean you should s-s-_ sssay _ it.” Bill said, staring at Richie, who just rolled his eyes and glanced away. 

_ “You sure they got ‘The Right Stuff’ to fix you up?” Bev asks. _   
_ “You know w-w-w-w-we'll take care of him. Thanks again, Beverly.” Bill says. _   
_ “Sure, maybe I'll see you around.” _   
_ “Yeah, we were maybe thinking about going to the q-q-q-quarry tomorrow, if you wanna…” _ _   
“Come? Good to know. Thanks.”_

Bev’s eyes widened. 

_ She leaves. _   
_ “Nice going, bringing up Bowers in front of her.” _   
_ “Yeah, did you hear what she did?” _ _   
_“What'd she do?” Ben asks. 

_ “More who’d she do…” _   
_ “I heard that the list is longer than my wang.” _

Bev put her face in her hands, flushing with anger. Richie glanced at her and winced. So sometimes he was a tad insensitive. He couldn’t always tell. 

_ “That's not saying much.” _   
_ “They're j-j-just rumors.” _ _   
“Anyway, Bill had her back in third grade.” Richie says. “They kissed in the school play. The reviews said that you can't fake that kind of passion. _

“See, what I’m curious about is, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to have third graders acting out, Romeo and Juliet or some shit.” Fate remarked, frowning. “It seems a little bit inappropriate to have nine-year-olds kissing.” 

There was an awkward pause. 

“So it’s a Derry thing, then? Should’ve figured.”

_ Now,” he lapses into a rather bad British accent, “pip pip and tally-ho my good fellows, I do believe this chap requires our utmost attention. Now get in there Dr. K and fix him up!” _ _   
_

“Still a better British accent than I can do.” Fate said, noticing Richie’s little wince. “I’m no good at accents at all.” 

Richie brightened a little bit. 

_ “Why don't you shut the fuck up, Einstein, because I know what I'm doing and I don't want you _   
_ doing the British guy.” _ _   
“Suck the wound. Get in there.”_

_ The scene cuts to Bev entering her home. The TV is on: _ _   
_ _ “Toilet and tub water travels down drains into sewers. Culverts are fun to play with all your friends. Just keep the water into drains and sewers reach. When you are there with friends, you can have fun like a clown! That's right, it is the word of the day.” _

Arlene frowned. “That show…” 

“Yeah, I know, right?” Fate said, raising her eyebrows. “Fucked up in my opinion.”

_ Her father steps out in front of her. _   
_ “Hi daddy.” she says. _

Fate made an odd expression. 

_ “Hey Bevvie. What you got there?” He glances at her bag, then grabs it. _

_ “Just some things.” she says. _   
_ “Like what?” He opens it. Looks inside. Looks up with a slow smile. “Tell me you're still my little girl.” _

Richie and Stan exchanged a look, frowning. They weren’t the only ones- the better parents were definitely alarmed, particularly Andrea Uris, who was a social worker. 

_ “Yes daddy.” _ _   
_

Fate made the same odd expression again. 

“What’s with that face you’re making?” Alvin demanded. 

“In 2019, ‘daddy’ has some very, uh, interesting connotations.” 

“The fuck does that mean?” Richie asked. 

“You know, I think you already know way too much about sex, bud, so I’m not gonna answer that.” 

Richie frowned, bewildered. 

_ “Good.” _

_ He puts a hand in her hair. Pulls her close and smells her hair. _

“What the fuck?” Richie whispered in Stan’s ear. Stan just shrugged, frowning. 

_ Then he lets her go. She walks to the bathroom and stands at the sink. Rests her hands on the edges of the sink. _

_ She fumbles for the scissors. _

_ Then she cuts her hair, snipping off lock after lock, the fiery strands vanishing down the drain. By the time she’s done, she’s crying. She lifts a hand to her hair, staring at her reflection. _ _   
_

“Now why the hell would you go and cut off your hair?” Alvin demanded. 

Bev flinched. “I-I wouldn’t.” 

“I honestly think that’s none of your business.” Fate snapped. “Girls can have short hair, boys can have long hair, who gives a shit. Gender isn’t real, anyway.” 

“Wha- gender’s real!” said a teacher rather hotly.

“Biological sex is real. Gender is a social construct. People can be a certain gender or they can be no gender, or any gender. This isn’t the place to have a discussion like that.” Fate said firmly. “This part’s done now. Let’s keep watching, shall we?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… I’m back! I was writing a story for the Poly Losers Club fic exchange, which took up a lot of time, but the deadline is Wednesday so… OT7 shippers, expect CONTENT.  
The bit about gender is maybe my awkward way of coming out online as nonbinary?? Sorry if it seems out of place.  
I am now out of pre-edited script, so the next chapter may take a while again. Sorry.  
Hope you all enjoyed!


	8. what’s the difference between unsolved mysteries and buzzfeed unsolved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Quarry! Ben’s House!! New Kids on the Block!!! The Beginning of Real Ben’s Love for Bev!!!! Fate Expressing Her Power to Make Bullies Shut Their Fuck!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter to make up for my silence. Sorry. I should have more soon… ish… i hope  
warnings: alvin bein creepy, more hints of the whole 'richie knows too much about sex' shit, graphic descriptions of loogies, ben being embarassed by bullies

_ The scene cuts to the quarry.  _

_ A radio is playing: “A high ball to the left. His last batting. He brushed the post. Wade Booggs, of course, leads the league in such long shots.” _ _   
_ _ “Do it!” _ _   
_ _ “Oh my god!” _

_ The boys are playing loogie.  _

“Oh, gross!” Maggie laughed, and Richie made a face at her. 

This was a much more light-hearted scene, and everyone was glad for it. 

_ “Piece of cake.” _ _   
_ _ “Poor tree.” _ _   
_ _ “So easy!” _ _   
_ _ “Oh my god, that was terrible. I win.” Richie announced.  _ _   
_ _ “You won?” Eddie demanded.  _ _   
_ _ “Yeah. You see my loogie, it went the farthest. It's about distance.” _

_ “It's mass.” _ _   
_ _ “What is mass?” _ _   
_ _ “It doesn't matter how far it goes. It's how cool it looks, and it's green or it's white.”  _ _   
_

Stan and Bill exchanged a Look, sighing. 

_ “Alright.” Bill broke up the argument. “Who's first?” _

_ All five boys peer over the edge of the cliff, down into the water.  _ _   
_ _ “I'll go.” Bev announces from behind them- they turn to find her pulling off her dress. “Sissies!”  _

_ She sprints past them and leaps off the cliff, plunging into the water.  _ _   
_

Alvin sat up straight and scowled.  **His** Bevvie, playing with a bunch of boys, stripping down to her underwear, letting them all get a good look. 

Bev became aware of her father’s scowl and shrank, eyes welling up. Was he always going to be like this? So controlling? And, and  **weird** ? 

_ “What the fuck?” one of the boys yelps.  _ _   
_ _ “Ahhh, holy shit, we just got shown up by a girl.” Richie says.  _ _   
_ _ Stan glances at him nervously. “We have to do that now?” _ _   
_ _ “Yes.” Eddie says.  _ _   
_ _ And now the six of them are all in the water, splashing about and swimming, delighted cries ringing through the air. Splashing and wrestling, play-fighting,  _

Honestly, it was a sweet and adorable scene, but pretty much everyone was expecting an attack or something. 

_ At one point, Richie yelps. “Ah fuck! What was that?”  _

“I’m familiar with that feeling.” Fate said ruefully, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I’m blind as a fucking bat without these.” 

_ Everyone gathers ‘round.  _ _   
_ _ “It just touched my foot.” _ _   
_ _ The other five start dipping underwater, looking.  _ _   
_ _ “Where?” _ _   
_ _ “Here.” _ _   
_ _ Bill surfaces with a laugh. “It's a turtle.” _ _   
_

“A turtle, here in Derry?” Wentworth said, confused.

Fate snickered softly. “Don’t worry about it. The turtle’s just keeping an eye out.” 

“…What?”

“Nothing.”

_ Now they’re settled on the cliff, with Bev sunbathing on her towel. The boys are staring at her, looking rather starstruck.  _

All five boys turned red, and Bev looked wide-eyed at the screen. Alvin scowled darkly, thinking about how he knew what went through their heads (he didn’t- they were largely confused, having never really seen sunbathing girls before. Yes, they had also been noticing how pretty she was, but the perverted thoughts that Alvin Marsh had when looking at Bev never even came close to crossing any of the Losers minds). 

_ She turns her head and all five of them look away hastily, with Richie reaching into Ben’s backpack and pulling out a folder.  _

_ “News flash, Ben, School's out for summa.” he says.  _ _   
_ _ “Oh that, that's not school stuff.” Ben says hastily.  _ _   
_ _ “Who sent you this?” Richie holds up the postcard, trying to read it.  _ _   
_

Ben turned red. Stan gave the most put-upon sigh any of the adults had ever heard, which made many of them smile a little. 

_ “No one.” Ben snatches it and puts it away. “No one.” _ _   
_ _ “What's with the history project?” Eddie asks, while Richie is now snooping through the folder.  _ _   
_ _ “Oh well, when I first moved here, I really didn't have anyone to hang out with so I just started spending time in the library.” _

_ Richie passes Bill the folder.  _ _   
_ _ "You went to the library? On purpose?” Richie asks incredulously.  _ _   
_

“Richie…” Stan said. “Going to the library would probably do you some good.”

Richie shrugged. “I’d probably get kicked out.”

_ “I wanna see.” Bev gets up and sits down next to Bill.  _ _   
_ _ “What's the Black Spot?” Stan asks while Bev takes a look through the folder.  _ _   
_ _ “The Black Spot was a nightclub that was burned down years ago by that racist cult.” Ben answers.  _ _   
_ _ “The what?” _ _   
_ _ “Don't you watch Geraldo?” Eddie asks.  _ _   
_

Leroy Hanlon looked, surprisingly, rather amused. Largely that Ben had said ‘that racist cult’ like there had only ever been one racist cult in the history of the world. 

_ Bill looks at Bev. “Y-y-y-y-your hair…” _ _   
_ _ “Your hair looks beautiful. Beverly.” Ben says.  _ _   
_ _ “Oh, right, thanks.” Bev says, grinning nervously and tucking a lock behind her ear.  _ _   
_ _ Bill and Ben briefly exchange an awkward look.  _

Richie started snickering. Bill and Ben both turned red. 

_ “Here, pass.” Richie says, holding out a hand. Bill passes him the folder and Richie starts flipping through it again. “Why's it all murders and missing kids? _ _   
_ _ “Derry's not like any town I've ever been in before. They did a study once… it turns out people die or disappear six times the national average.” _

“Wait, what?” Maggie said, frowning. 

_ The kids shift nervously.  _ _   
_ _ “You… read that?” Bev asks.  _ _   
_ _ “And that’s just grown-ups. Kids are like, worse, way, way worse.”  _

“I’ve never heard that.” murmured Andrea. 

“It’s true.” Fate offered. “Derry’s pretty bad.”

_ A pause.  _

_ “I've got more stuff, if you want to see it.” Ben offers. Eddie shakes his head nervously. _ _   
_ _ The scene cuts to the kids riding their bikes up to Ben’s house, where they deposit them on the grass and run in.  _

_ A woman is stapling a piece of paper to a post.  _

_ It’s a missing poster. For Patrick Hockstetter.  _

_ Inside, Ben hastily starts gathering up various items and stuffing them into his closet. He shuts the closet door and leans on it in an attempt to appear casual. _

Ben turned red.

Before anybody else could speak, Fate chirped, “That’s exactly how I clean up. Everything off the floor and tucked away somewhere. My closet at home’s a  **disaster** , or it was until we did a deep clean with our parents- my sister and I, I mean. Not the royal we.”

_ Richie and Eddie can faintly be heard chattering.  _

_ “Do not freak out, just tell us.” _

_ “Yes.”  _

_ “I heard he has a roller coaster and a chimpanzee… and the bones of an old man. Yes.” _ _   
_ _ “Heavens.” _

_ They go quiet as the group enters Ben’s room.  _

_ Richie adjusts his glasses. “Woah, woah, woah, wow!”  _ _   
_ _ “Cool, huh?” Ben says as the other Losers wander through the room.  _ _   
_ _ “No, nothing cool.” Richie says as he approaches Ben’s Wall of Horrors. “There's nothing cool.” _ _   
_

Ben flushed again, confused. 

_ “Well this is cool, wait, no it's not.” _ _   
_ _ “What's that?” _ _   
_ _ “That? That's the charter for Derry Township.” Ben says.  _ _   
_

“I wanna know how you found that, I really do.” Fate said. 

Ben just blinked, because he was kinda wondering the same thing. 

_ “Nerd alert.” Richie coughs.  _ _   
_ _ “Actually, it's really interesting. Derry started as a beaver trapping camp.” _

_ “Still is, am I right, boys?” _ _   
_

“Richie…” Maggie sighed, both exasperated and confused. How on Earth had Richie learned this stuff? Certainly not from her or Wentworth! And clearly not from his friends. 

_ “Ninety-one people signed the charter that made Derry. But later that winter, they all disappeared without a trace.” _ _   
_

“Huh?” said Mr. Keene. 

_ “The entire camp?” _ _   
_ _ “There were rumors of Indians… but no sign of an attack. Everyone thought it was a plague or something. But it's like… one day everybody just woke up and left. The only clue was a trail of bloody clothes leading to the well house.” _ _   
_

“Well house?” Stan asked. 

“Mm-hm. You’ll see.” Fate replied. 

_ “Jesus, we can go on ‘Unsolved Mysteries’.” Richie says.  _ _   
_

“It'd be  Buzzfeed Unsolved in the modern world.” Fate said. “Actually, I’d really like to see that.” 

“What’s Buzzfeed Unsolved? It’s like Unsolved Mysteries?” Richie asked. 

“I mean, I guess. I don’t really know much about Unsolved Mysteries but I assume so. I probably wouldn’t like it- I mainly like Buzzfeed Unsolved because it’s hilarious.” 

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of creepy mysteries?” 

“I dunno. I don’t like being spooked, dude, I’m just fascinated by the macabre.” 

_ “Let's do it. You’re brilliant.” Eddie replies, in the background.  _

_ Bev has mostly-closed Ben’s bedroom door. There’s a massive poster of New Kids on the Block.  _

Bowers and his gang burst into raucous laughter, alongside a fair number of other kids. Ben turned red again and felt tears prick at his eyes. 

The laughter stopped. Fate was holding up a hand which glowed with white light. 

“No mocking someone for their music tastes.” Fate said coldly. 

She lowered her hand. The laughter didn’t start again. 

_ Ben freezes. Makes a pleading face. Bev smiles and opens the door, hiding the poster from sight.  _

_ Ben smiles, red-faced. He’s in love.  _ _   
_

Ben smiled a little bit, trying to fight back both the blush and the tears. Bev really seemed nice. Not just pretty. 

_ In the background: “Maybe.” _ _   
_ _ “I don't know. Maybe he's just trying to make friends, Stanley.” Richie mutters.  _ _   
_ _ “Where was the well house?” Bill asks, holding a projector slide.  _ _   
_ _ “I don't know, somewhere in town, I guess. Why?” Ben replies.  _ __   
_ “Nothing.” Bill answers.  _ __   


“Not nothing, is it.” Stan sighed. 

Fate beamed. “Nope!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who wants to write buzzfeed unsolved: derry edition  
i’m willing to cowrite one  
Lets fuckn do it


	9. more encounters and lots of rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> as per the title

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short but scary! i hope  
Oh yeah, some religious stuff in here. if you're offended by Fate declaring herself God then labeling God her boss, uh, sorry.   
Also! I did not proofread except to try to make sure there weren't to many formatting issues! I caught two spelling errors at the last second, so hopefully that's all. I never proofread, though, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

_ The scene cuts away to Eddie, walking home, past the Neibolt Street Church. As he enters the neighborhood, he begins whistling into his hands. Abandoned and ill-kept homes loom. He passes the immense, hulking, rotting Neibolt House- Number 29, Neibolt Street.  _

“Oh, that’s kind of… creepy.” Arlene murmured. 

_ He hesitates, staring at the once-grand building. The alarm on Eddie’s watch goes off. He looks down at his wrist, then back up to the house.  _ _   
_ _ He fumbles with his fanny pack, pulls out a pill container, glancing at the house- the door drifts open as he lifts a pill to his mouth and he hesitates as a voice whispers- “Eddie… What are you looking for?” _

“Oh, shit!” Richie yelped. Eddie paled rather dramatically. 

_ -he starts to walk, drops the container, it bursts open, and pills spill everywhere. “Fuck. My mom will kill me.”  _

_ Eddie drops to his knees and starts frantically gathering up his pills, managing to collect all but one.  _

“That’s really unhygienic, you know.” Fate advised. “I mean, God knows what’s on the street there.” 

A pause. 

“Oh wait, I’m God.” 

Another pause. 

“Yeah, beats me. Don’t take pills that have been on the street unless you, I dunno, wash them or something.”

“You’re… God?” Donald asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Not technically, but you know what. I’m pretty much omniscient, so.” Fate shrugged. “Besides, God’s my boss. They won’t be offended.” 

_ He reaches for it. It’s a red pill. Leathery fingers snatch the pill just as his hand brushes it.  _

_ Eddie reels back, eyes going wide with fear.  _ _   
_ _ A grotesque leper, face rotting, one eye cloudy, the other bloody, nose all but gone, gaping sores and bloody, filthy bandages, drool running down its chin, skin eaten away by  _ ** _something_ ** _ .  _

“Oh, shit oh shit oh shit oh shit!” Eddie whimpered, eyes wide with fear. 

“What the fuck is that!” Richie yelped. 

“It’s a leper.” Fate answered. “Fuckin' horrifying, isn’t it?” 

“If that thing touches Eddie he’ll DIE!” Sonia shrieked. 

“It’s not actually infectious, just gross as all fuck.” Fate told her. “Relax. It’s just gonna get worse from here.” 

“I don’t think that’s something to relax about!” Stan protested. 

_ “Do you think this will help me, Eddie?” the leper asks.  _ _   
_ _ Eddie, understandably, runs. The leper chases him into the yard of Neibolt House, one arm swinging loosely.  _

_ “Help!” he screams, tripping, crashing to the dirt for only a moment before he scrambles up again and keeps running.  _

Eddie was hyperventilating, eyes wide and shaking hands pressed against his mouth. Stan and Bill pressed into his sides, trying to calm him down, and Richie reached over Stan to touch Eddie’s shoulder. 

Sonia had turned red and swelled up, looking like she was on the verge of exploding. 

_ And then he corners himself against the fence and looks around, wide-eyed. _

_ The leper is gone. Instead, there’s the clown, holding a bunch of balloons.  _ _   
_ _ “Where are you going, Eds?” Pennywise asks with a smile. “If you lived here, you'd be home right now. Come join the clown, Eds. You'll float down here. We all float down here, yes we do.”  _

“Oh, my God.” Maggie whispered. 

_ Eddie is shaking, pressed against the fence. It laughs, and Eddie screams and ducks down, crawling through a hole in the chain link.  _

_ It disappears with a pop, and when Eddie looks back, there’s only scraps of red rubber falling to the dirt.  _ _   
_

“It can TELEPORT?!” Eddie shrieked. 

“Yep.” Fate said, with far too much cheer. 

_ Bev walks into her room, putting down her backpack and opening it up. She pulls out a postcard and stares at it. Then she races for the bathroom, shuts and latches the door, and moves to the bathtub, draping herself inside. _

Ben’s face turned red, his eyes wide. 

Alvin’s eyes narrowed. 

_ She reads the poem with a smile on her face.  _

_ “‘Your hair is winter fire…’ _ _   
_ _ ‘January embers…’ _ _   
_ _ ‘My heart burns there too.’” _

_ She smiles, pressing the postcard against her chest.  _

It was a very sweet moment, and a relief from Eddie’s traumatic encounter only moments earlier. 

_ Then- voices. _

“Oh, great.” Stan muttered. 

_ “Beverly… Beverly. Help me. Please help me. We all want to meet you, Beverly. We all float down here.” _

_ Bev puts the postcard down and rises, crossing to the sink.  _ _   
_

“Bad idea.” Fate warned. 

_ She peers down into the drain. “Hello? Who you are?” _ _   
_ _ “I'm Veronica. Betty Ripsom. Patrick Hockstetter.” the voices whisper. She leans closer, squinting.  _ _   
_

“The ones who-” Bev broke off, hesitating. Fate just nodded. 

_ “Come closer. You want to see? We float. We changed.” _

_ She steps out of the bathroom and runs and gets a tape measure, heads back to the bathroom.  _

_ She feeds the tape down into the drain. Down. Down. Down.  _

“That seems… like a bad idea.” Stan said quietly. 

“Oh, it’s a terrible idea!” Fate said brightly. 

_ A giggle. Then ropes of hair shoot out of the drain and wrap around her, pulling her down. She screams. A reddish bubble forms at the mouth of the drain- bursts. Blood fountains out of the sink and sprays across the entire room.  _ _   
_

“OH MY GOD!” someone shrieked, eyes wide. 

Bev tensed, hands clamping over her mouth to keep the cry from escaping. Because  **fuck** . 

_ “Daddy! Help! Help!” _

_ She staggers away from the sink, the blood coating the room and covering her. Collapses.  _

_ Her father bursts in.  _ _   
_ _ “What the hell's goin' on?” _ _   
_ _ “The sink… There's blood, it's…”  _ _   
_ _ “What blood?” He looks at her. She stares back, wide-eyed, bewildered.  _ _   
_

“Wait.” said Wentworth slowly. “Can he not…”

Fate gave a cheerful smile. “Nope! Like I said earlier, adults can’t interfere. It can make them not even see it, hence him not seeing the blood all over the place.”

“Well.” said Arlene, anxiously. “That’s…”

Fate smiled again. “Great, isn’t it!”

“Not exactly the word I would’ve used.”

_ “The sink, you don't see it? There was blood.”  _ _   
_ _ “You worry me, Bevvie. You worry me a lot.” _ _   
_ _ “But you don't see?” _

_ He kneels in front of her, brushes at a lock of hair plastered to her forehead.  _ _   
_ _ “Why'd you do this to your hair? Makes you look like a boy.” _ _   
_ _ He leaves.  _

Alvin scowled. This monster thing, it was trying to kill his daughter. 

Nobody touched his little girl. 

Nobody except him. 

_ The scene cuts to Bill’s room. Blood drips from the ceiling, landing on a drawing of Beverly. _

Bill froze, cheeks reddening. Richie raised an eyebrow at him (coincidentally making the same face he would when Bill invited Bev to the quarry). 

_ He turns over, looks up from where he lies on his bed. Gets up. He goes and grabs a bucket, carries it toward his room- the light clicks on in Georgie’s room. He stops. Puts the bucket down. Walks into Georgie’s room. There’s no one there.  _

Everyone tensed. Bill quietly pulled Georgie back into his lap. 

_ He crosses to Georgie’s nightstand and picks up a Lego turtle. Sits on the bed and stares at it. He looks like he might cry- a shadow can be seen on the door. A small shadow.  _

Bill tensed. What was It going to use against him? 

Couldn’t be Georgie… right?

Even a monster wouldn’t do that… 

Would it?

_ A noise draws Bill out of the room, and he sees footprints going down the stairs. He follows them all the way down- sees a figure clad in a yellow raincoat run through a door. _

Bill froze. Oh, no. 

Eddie immediately scooted closer to Bill, trying to comfort him. 

_ The Lego turtle drops to the ground and breaks apart. Bill heads for the basement.  _

_ Down the stairs. Georgie is pressed against the wall behind a shelf, smirking.  _

_ “I lost it, Billy. Don't be mad.” _ _   
_

Stan reached around Eddie to grip Bill’s shoulder. Georgie blinked at the screen, arms wrapped around his big brother.  _   
_

_ “I'm not mad at you.” Bill says.  _

_ Georgie emerges.  _ _   
_ _ “Just floated off. But, Bill, if you come with me… You'll float too.” _ _   
_ _ “Georgie.” Bill whispers, voice cracking.  _ _   
_

“Oh, God.” Sharon whispered, face pale. 

_ “You'll float too!” he says. It turns into a guttural growl. “You'll float too! You'll float too! You'll float too! You'll float too! You'll float too! You'll float too!” _

“Oh, God.” Sharon repeated, and Zach hugged her. 

Bill was shaking hard, and Eddie was pretty much wrapped around him, wide-eyed. Stan was still holding onto Bill, and Georgie had buried his face in Bill’s shirt. Richie sat next to Stan, staring at the screen. 

_ and then Georgie simply falls apart. A clown rises out of the water and runs at Bill, screeching. Bill bolts up the stairs and slams the basement door behind him. The clown falls on the steps and slides back down. _ _   
_

Sharon burst into tears, still terrified that she could end up losing both of her sons. 

Fate gave them all an uneasy smile. “It, uh, it’s not too bad, the next few scenes? Less, um, risk of dying?”

“That’s NOT COMFORTING.” Maggie fretted. 

Fate shrugged. “Sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO I AM BACK  
At last  
Sorry this chapter took so long… the semester is kicking into gear but not too bad yet. I should get the next chapter out in a reasonable time frame (knock on wood).   
I would also like to announce, officially, that once I finish this movie, I’ll do Chapter Two! I got both movies for Christmas!


	10. a quiet space which isn’t all that quiet but still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bathroom cleaning, a rock war, and the Fourth of July.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, you say? She’s back? Already? With a new chapter? Why, it’s only been a week!  
(don’t expect a new one so quickly, sorry.)  
So they do get a bit of a break this chapter, before the rest of the movie kicks them in the asses eighty billion consecutive times.   
In other words, Neibolt House is next chapter.   
PLEASE READ THE END NOTES IMPORTANT INFORMATION it's not bad news i swear

“Well,” Fate said, “this should be a quieter few scenes. So you can all relax a bit.” 

Everyone eyed her.

“But then it’s gonna be rough, sorry. No real breaks for the rest of the movie, really.”

“Great.” Maggie, already stressed, was even more agitated now.

_ The scene cuts to Bev on her fire escape. Smoking. She hears voices and leaps up, puts out her cigarette- runs down the fire escape.  _

“Smoking?” Alvin turned towards his daughter, who shrank. “Really, Bevvie?”

“S-sorry.” she whispered. 

Fate cleared her throat loudly and obnoxiously. “Smoking may be unhealthy- it certainly is- but I don’t see how this is helpful.” In other words, please shut up. 

_ The boys turn the corner, chattering. She approaches.  _

_ “I-I need to show you something.” _ _   
_ _ “What is it?” _ _   
_ _ “More than we saw at the quarry?” Richie asks. _ _   
_

“Richie!” Maggie exclaimed, while Richie looked bemused and mildly upset. 

He hadn’t  **done ** any of this yet!

He wasn’t even sure why his future self was saying that stuff or even what some of it meant. 

_ “Shut up! Just shut up, Richie.” _

_ “My dad will kill me if he finds out that I had boys in the apartment.” _ _   
_

Alvin’s eyes narrowed, but he could reluctantly acknowledge that punishing Beverly for these things would have to wait until they were no longer under the watchful eye of a powerful goddess. 

_ “W-w-w-w-we'll leave a lookout.” _ _   
_ _ “Now Richie, just stay here.” _ _   
_ _ “Woah, woah, woah, what if her dad comes back?” _ _   
_ _ Stan turns. “Do what you always do. Start talking.” _ _   
_ _ Richie shrugs. “It is a gift.” _ _   
_

Maggie and Went both started worrying. After all, Richie was being left alone while a monster that ate children was on the loose. And he hadn’t met the monster yet. 

_ Inside, they walk toward her bathroom.  _

_ “In there…” she says softly. _ _   
_ _ “What is it?” _ _   
_ _ “You'll see.” _ _   
_ _ “Great, bringing us to the bathroom.” Eddie frets. “You know that 89% of the worse accidents occur in the bathroom and kitchen. And that's where all the bacteria and fungi are… and it is not a hygienic place…” _

“That’s right!” Sonia huffed, glaring at Bev, who just blinked. Why did people keep looking at and scolding them for things they hadn’t even done yet?

_ Bill nudges the door open. The group is washed in red. “I knew it!” Eddie blurts.  _ _   
_ _ “Do you see it?” Bev asks. _ _   
_ _ “Yes.” _ _   
_ _ “What happened in here?” _ _   
_ _ “My dad couldn't see it, I thought that I might be crazy.” _

“Nope!” Fate said cheerfully. 

_ “Well if you're crazy, then we're all crazy.” _ _   
_ _ “We c-c-c-can't leave it like this.” Bill says.  _

_ Now the whole group is scrubbing the bathroom up. Bev wipes at the mirror. Ben scrubs the floor near her feet. Eddie wrings out a cloth into a bucket, inhaler firmly jammed in his mouth.  _

“Are you- are you  **breathing** through your inhaler?” Stan asked incredulously. 

“Sure looks like he is.” Richie remarked, smirking a little as Eddie immediately sat up, cheeks flushing angrily. 

“Shut up, asshole!” Eddie snapped. 

Nobody bothered calling him out on his language. 

_ Stan methodically wipes the window clean.  _ _   
_ _ They haul trash bags out of the clean bathroom, leaving Bill and Bev to talk.  _

_ “You never went to the Summer Fair Derry?” he asks. _ _   
_ _ “No, I think not.” _ _   
_ _ “That I know. I go every year… but once I went with Richie and I won because I hit the target. But there were so many prizes I didn't know which one to choose.” _

_ She glances at him. “It's not true, you know… What they say about me. I was only ever kissed by one guy. It was a long time ago. But it was a nice kiss though.” A pause. “‘January embers.’” _ _   
_

Bev’s face turned red. Again. 

_ “W-w-w-w-was that in the play?” Bill asks. _ _   
_ _ “No, the poem.” _ _   
_ _ “Oh, I really don't read much p-p-poetry.” _ _   
_ _ “Oh I just,” she pauses, her face freezing in a clear ‘fuck’. “never mind.” _ _   
_

Bev turned her head a little bit to glance at Ben. 

_ “Oh, just so you know, I never believed any of the rumors. None of us losers do. We like hanging with you.” _ _   
_ _ “Thanks.” _ _   
_ _ “You should not thank us too much- hanging out with us makes you a loser too.” _

_ “I can take that.” she says, grinning. _ _   
_ _ Outside, everyone except Richie is walking their bikes, while Richie rides in circles around them.  _

_ “No, I love being your personal doorman. Really could you idiots have taken any longer?” he demands.  _ _   
_ _ “Shut up, Richie.” _ _   
_ _ “Yeah, shut up, Richie.” _

_ “Oh okay, trash the trash-mouth, I get it. Hey I wasn't the one scrubbing the bathroom floor imagining that her sink went all Eddie's mom's vagina on Halloween.” _

Eddie made the most indignant noise anyone watching had ever heard.  _   
_

_ “She didn't imagine it. I s-s-saw something too.” Bill says softly, stopping.  _ _   
_ _ “You saw blood, too?” _ _   
_ _ “Not blood, I saw G-g-Georgie. It seemed so real, I mean it seemed like him but there was this…” _ _   
_ _ “A clown.” Eddie says softly. Everyone looks at him. He looks up nervously. “Yeah, I saw him too.” _ _   
_

Stan reached for Richie’s hand again, nervously. 

_ “Wait, can only virgins see this stuff?” Richie asks. “Is that why I'm not seeing this shit?”  _

Maggie and Wentworth exchanged a somewhat concerned look. Because really. 

_ No one responds- they’ve noticed a car and a bike, side-by-side, nearby.  _ _   
_ _ “Oh shit, that's Belch Huggins car.” Eddie says anxiously. “We, we should probably get outta here.” _ _   
_ _ “Yes.” _ _   
_ _ “Wait isn't that the homeschooled kids bike?” Bill asks.  _ _   
_ _ “Yeah, that's Mike’s.” Eddie replies.  _ _   
_

Mike blinked. “You know my name?” he asked shyly. 

Eddie nodded. “Sure I do.” 

Sonia quietly harrumphed. Her precious Eddie-bear, hanging around with a whore and a black kid. 

_ “We have to help him.” Bev says. _ _   
_ _ “We should?” Eddie asks warily.  _ _   
_ _ “Yes.” Bev drops her bike, and the others follow suit- only Stan pauses to put his kickstand down.  _

Fate, for some reason, pointed at Stan. “Mood.” 

“…what?” Stan asked. 

Fate lowered her hand. “Whoops. Future slang, sorry. Just means ‘same’ or ‘relatable’.” 

“Oh.”

_ Bowers is pressing Mike’s head down toward the meat scattered on the ground beneath him, while his gang shouts eagerly.  _

Mike flinched, ducking his head. They probably wouldn’t help his future self if Bowers was all riled up and extra angry. 

_ “Eat that meat, eat it!” Criss shouts. The other two yell mockingly as Mike looks up slowly, only to see Pennywise in the grass, nibbling on a child’s bloody arm. The clown waves with it, mockingly.  _

Sharon let out a little half-sob, eyes widening. Bill hugged Georgie. 

_ And then Bowers is throwing Mike onto his back and grabbing a rock, raising it, ready to bash Mike’s head in.  _

_ Until a rock hits him and he falls back.  _

_ Bev lowers her arm, wide-eyed, as the other Losers arrive.  _

_ “Nice throw.” Stan says.  _

_ “Thanks.” she replies.  _

Oh, Mike thought. Okay. 

_ “You losers are trying too hard.” Bowers says, smirking. “She’ll do you. You just gotta ask nicely. Like I did.” _

Perhaps surprisingly to the parents, all the boys looked pissed. 

But hey. 

The decent parents were pissed too. 

Heck, Alvin was pissed. Of course he was- the implication of anybody  **else** touching his daughter. 

_ Bev’s lips press together. She’s hurt.  _

_ Ben yells, loudly.  _

_ “The fuck?” Bowers mutters, and then Ben hurls the rock in his hand, hitting Bowers again in the head.  _

Ben blushed red and Bev smiled a little. 

_ “Rock war!” Richie screams in response, before promptly getting clonked in the head.  _ _   
_

“Oh, Jesus!” Maggie exclaimed, clutching her heart. 

“They’re pretty sturdy.” Fate said, shrugging. “Heads made of steel, as my mom sometimes says.”

_ And with that, chaos erupts.  _

_ “Give them hard!” _ _   
_ _ “Watch out!” _ _   
_ _ “Drop dead, you fuckers.” _ _   
_ _ “Eddie!” _ _   
_ _ “Get out of here!” _ _   
_ _ “Shit!” _ _   
_ _ “FUCK YOU BITCH!” Belch shouts in slow-motion, before Bev’s rock meets his skull.  _ _   
_

Richie may have been the first to start laughing, but he was far from the last. Practically every kid that the Bowers Gang had ever bullied was currently rooting for the Losers to beat the absolute shit out of the bullies. 

_ “Come on guys!” _ _   
_ _ “Go to hell, losers!” _

_ Finally Belch and Criss flee, leaving Bowers on the ground. The Losers start to leave, glaring over their shoulders.  _

_ Richie delivers a parting shot: “GO BLOW YOUR DAD, YOU MULLET-WEARING ASSHOLE!”  _

“Oh- Richie!” Maggie’s scold was not very effective, since she was half-laughing the entire time. Although the plethora of sexual jokes were still worrying her. 

_ He flips Bowers off and leaves.  _ _   
_ _ They walk through a field.  _

_ “Thanks guys, but you shouldn't have done that, he'll be after you guys too now.” Mike says. _ _   
_ _ “Ah, now Bowers, he's always after us.” Eddie replies.  _ _   
_ _ “I guess that's one th-th-thing we all have in common.” Bill remarks.  _ _   
_ _ “Yeah, homeschool,” Richie says, “welcome to the Loser's Club.” _ _   
_

“And they  **finally** have a name.” Fate sighed dramatically. “Then again, none of my friend groups ever had names.” 

_ Bill stands beside a wall, with a missing poster for Eddie Corcoran taped to the bricks.  _

Eddie Corcoran’s mother flinched, eyes widening. He, meanwhile, just stared kind of blankly. 

How the fuck were you supposed to react to learning that you were gonna go missing and get eaten by a monster? 

_ Ben, Bev, Stan, and Mike are clustered close, watching.  _

_ “They said they found part of his hand all chewed up near the standpipe.”  _ _   
_

“Fuck…” someone mumbled. 

_ “He asked to borrow a pencil once.” Ben murmurs.  _ _   
_ _ BIll lifts Corcoran’s poster. Underneath is a poster with Betty Ripsom’s smiling face. “It's like she's been f-f-f-forgotten because Corcoran's missing.” _ _   
_ _ “Is it ever gonna end?” _ _   
_ _ In the background, you can see Richie trying to play a band members tuba. The tuba player finally wrestles the instrument away from Richie, who cries “What the fuck, dude?” before walking over to the Losers.  _

“This always makes me snicker.” Fate said, smiling. “Though, if anybody grabbed my flute away from me while I was playing and started trying to play it, I would beat them with it.” 

Richie eyed her nervously. 

_ “What are you guys talking about?” Eddie asks as he arrives with a pair of ice cream cones.  _ _   
_ _ “What they always talk about.” Richie says, coming up beside Eddie, who hands him one of the cones.  _ _   
_ _ “I actually think it will end, for a little while, at least.” Ben says.  _ _   
_ _ “What do you mean?” _ _   
_ _ “So I was going over all of my data research and I charted out all of the big events. The Ironworks explosion in 1908. The Bradley Gang in '35 and The Black Spot in '62. And now the kids being… I realized that this stuff seems to happen-” _

_ “Every 27 years.” Bill says.  _ _   
_

“A cycle?” Donald asked. Fate nodded. 

_ They sit on and around a bench in front of the Paul Bunyan statue.  _

_ “Ok so let me get this straight. IT comes out from wherever to eat kids for like a year and then what? IT just goes into hibernation?” Eddie asks. _ _   
_ _ “Maybe it's like... What do you call it? Cicadas. You know, the bugs that come out once every 17 years.” Stan offers. _ _   
_

“Ah, cicadas.” Fate sighed. “I hate the bloody things. Damn near impossible to sleep in the Midwest when they’re out.” 

“Why did you say ‘bloody’?” wondered Mrs. Keene. “You’re not British…?”

“No, I’m from Indiana. Well, I did read Harry Potter. Kinda just picked it up, it’s cool.” 

_ “My grandfather thinks this town is cursed. He says that all the bad things that happened in this town are because of one thing. An evil thing that feeds off the people of Derry.” Mike says. _

Fate smiled a little while everyone glanced at Leroy. “Well, he’s not wrong.” 

_ “But it can't be one thing. We all saw something different.” Stan argues.  _ _   
_ _ “Maybe. Or maybe IT knows what scares us most and that's what we see.” Mike replies.  _ _   
_ _ Eddie looks down. “I-I saw a leper. He was like a walking infection.” _

Eddie winced a little. 

_ Stan looks at him. “But you didn't. Because IT isn't real. None of this is. Not Eddie's leper or Bill seeing Georgie or the woman I keep seeing.” _ _   
_ _ “She hot?” Richie asks. Stan stares at him.  _ _   
_

Stan turned to face Richie, looking incredulous. Richie just shrugged. Hey, he had a tendency to open his stupid mouth at the worst times already, and if he was already stressed or scared it would probably get worse. 

_ “No, Richie. She's not hot. Her face is all messed up. None of this makes any sense. They're all like bad dreams.” _ _   
_ _ “I don't think so, I know the difference between a bad dream and real life, okay?” Mike says.  _

_ “What did you see?” Bill asks.  _

_ “You saw something too?” Eddie adds. _ _   
_ _ “Yes. You guys know that burnt down house on Harris Avenue? I was inside when it burned down. Before I rescued… my mom and dad were trapped in the next room over from me. They were pushing and pounding on the door trying to get to me.” _

Mike swallowed, hard, shaking a little bit. He hated thinking about that day. 

_ Faintly, voices can be heard.  _ _   
_ _ “Hurry up, son!” _ _   
_ _ “I'm burning!” _ _   
_

Bev turned a little toward Mike, hesitated, glanced at her father, and took Mike’s hand comfortingly. Mike smiled a little bit. 

_ “But it was too hot.” Mike continues, the others watching him wide-eyed. “When firefighters found them the skin on their hands melted down to the bone. We're all afraid of something.” _ _   
_ _ Richie twists around, staring at the stage behind him. “Got that right.” _ _   
_ _ “Why Rich? What are you afraid of?” Eddie asks.  _

_ Richie watches the stage, and a clown that no one seems to see but him. The clown smirks at him. He turns back, still silent, fidgets with his glasses- he’s hiding something. _ __   
_ “Clowns.” he says. “I’m afraid of clowns.” There’s a ring of something not quite true in his voice. _ __   


“Clowns?” Maggie asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Hey, clowns are pretty creepy.” Fate remarked, shrugging. “Not saying he’s actually that scared of them, but they are terrifying.”

“But if he’s not scared of them, why say it?” Went wondered. 

Fate just shrugged. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I just want to lay out what I’m seeing for the future of this story. I managed to outline the rest of the first movie- Neibolt House is next chapter, followed by a chapter of the middle stuff, then one last chapter for the fighting-IT stuff. So three more chapters for the first movie. I plan on doing both movies, one after the other. Once I’m done with this one, which is gonna be a while since it’s both movies, I’ll write a sequel featuring the Losers and their families acting on their new future knowledge, while the rest of Derry will lose their memories. Alvin and Sonia will probably also lose their memories.


	11. death by extremely intense movie editing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The projector, into Neibolt House, and the kids split.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m ba-ack! :) Guess who had an anxiety attack over an English paper! me that's who  
so Real Life is a bitch, sorry for being gone for literally over a month

_ The scene cuts to Bill’s garage. A projector is being set up, slides from Ben’s house clicked into place.  _

_ A map of Old Derry, and a map from his dad’s office of the sewers.  _

_ “Okay.” Bill points at the map. “Look. Storm drain.That's where Georgie disappeared, there's the Ironworks, and the Black Spot. Everywhere IT happens it's-it's all connected by the sewers and they all meet up at the-” _

_ “The well-house.” Ben says, straightening.  _ _   
_

“Isn’t that the creepy house on-” Betty started. 

_ “You mean the house on Neibolt Street.” Stan says uneasily.  _ _   
_

“-never mind.” 

_ “You mean the creepy-ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?” Richie asks.  _

_ Eddie jams his inhaler into his mouth.  _

_ “I hate that place. Always feels like it's watching me.” Bev murmurs.  _ _   
_

“That’s ‘cause it is.” Fate said cheerfully. 

“…excuse me?” Bev asked. Fate just smiled.

_ “That's where I saw IT.” Eddie wheezes. “That’s where I saw the clown.” _ _   
_ _ “Tha-tha-tha-that's where IT lives.” Bill says.  _ _   
_ _ “I can't imagine anything ever wanting to live there.” Stan says softly.  _ _   
_ _ Eddie jumps to his feet. “Can we stop talking about this? I-I-I can barely breathe.” He’s standing in front of the projector, flailing, struggling to breathe. Panicking. “It's summer. We're kids, I can barely breathe, I’m having a fucking asthma attack, and fuck doing this.” _

“My Eddie should be at home, not-” Sonia started, fretting. 

“Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaasse shut the fuck up.” Fate groaned dramatically, sliding down in her chair until she fell off. 

Startled, Sonia shut up. Fate climbed back into her chair with a satisfied look on her face.

_ He tears the map off of the wall.  _ _   
_ _ “What the hell! Put the map back!” Bill demands. Eddie shakes his head.  _

_ The projector starts to whir and click on its own. Bill looks down with a frown. Everyone uneasily looks from the projector to the wall, where pictures of Bill and his family are now appearing.  _ _   
_

“What’s happening?” Ben asked shyly and nervously. 

Fate winced a bit. “You’ll see!” 

_ “What happened?” Bill asks, looking between the projector and the wall.  _ _   
_ _ “What's going on?” Stan asks.  _ _   
_ _ “I don't know.” Mike steps forward to look at the projector. “Guys…”  _ _   
_ _ A picture of the Denbrough family on a windy day appears, and with each new click it zooms in on Georgie.  _

_ “Georgie.” Bill says.  _ _   
_ _ “Bill?” _

_ The image begins to shift toward Sharon, whose face is obscured by her hair. It clicks more and more rapidly as slowly the face half-hidden changes from Sharon’s face, looking almost frightened, to a clown. The children erupt into chaos.  _ _   
_

“No, oh no!” Maggie yelped, gripping her husband’s hand tightly. The other parents looked equally terrified. Even Alvin and Sonia.

_ “WHAT THE FUCK!” Richie yells. _ _   
_ _ It's IT. _ _   
_ _ “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” Richie grabs Eddie’s arm. _ _   
_ _ “I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!” Eddie yells.  _

_ As It’s face appears, the only one who stays still is Bill, who seems transfixed.  _ _   
_ _ “Turn it off!” Bev shouts. “Turn it off!” _

_ The other kids join in, until Mike kicks the projector over.  _

_ A sigh of relief…  _

Sharon sank back in the couch, hand pressed to her chest. 

_ The projector clicks again. They all turn back to the screen and the frozen image of It. until the image disappears during a moment of utter blackness.  _

_ Stan is too close to the screen.  _

“No, no.” Andrea mumbled, looking horrified. 

_ The room goes black again. And the moment they can see it is It, popping out of the wall, too big, grinning malevolently.  _

_ Several kids scream.  _

_ “Run, Stanley!” someone shouts. He bolts.  _

_ It starts to crawl across the garage as the kids run, fall, and cling to each other. Bev shrinks against the wall as it reaches for her- _

Alvin’s eyes narrowed. 

Bev covered her mouth with her hands, eyes wide. 

_ Ben and Mike open the garage door, flooding the room with sunlight and causing It to disappear.  _

_ Bev slowly lowers her hands from her face, before making her way to Ben to touch his shoulder. “Thanks, Ben.”  _

_ Then she walks to Bill and hugs him. He hugs her back, until Eddie speaks.  _ _   
_

Alvin stared at Bill with narrowed eyes and a frown on his face. 

_ “IT saw us. IT saw us and It knows where we are.” _ _   
_ _ “IT always knew.” Bill says, and then he walks outside. “S-so let's go.” _ _   
_ _ “Go? Go where?” Ben asks.  _ _   
_ _ “Neibolt.” Bill answers. “That's where G-g-g-Georgie is.” _ _   
_

“Are you kidding me?” Sharon demanded. 

Fate gave her a grim smile. 

_ “After that?” Stan demands, gesturing behind them.  _ _   
_ _ “Yeah, it's summer, we should be outside…” Richie says.  _ _   
_ _ “If you say it's summer one more f-f-f-fucking time.” Bill says, frustrated. He turns away and grabs his bike.  _ _   
_ _ “Bill?” Bev calls. “Wait!” _

_ Bill pedals away.  _

Zach shook his head, a concerned frown on his face. 

Richie gripped Stan’s hand tightly. Stan reached out and took Eddie’s hand, tense. Eddie leaned into Bill, who held Georgie tighter. 

_ Reaches the house and skids to a halt, dropping his bike. He walks toward the house.  _

_ “He t-t-t-thrusts his fists. Against the p-p-post and still insists he sees the g-g-g-ghost.” he mumbles, stepping onto the porch and approaching the door. _

Bowers and his gang started quietly mocking Bill, who winced but otherwise stayed focused on the screen. 

Sharon shot the Bowers Gang a glare. 

_ The others arrive.  _ _   
_ _ “Bill! Bill, you can't go in there. This is crazy.” _ _   
_ _ Bill turns. “Look, you don't have to come in with me, but what happens when another Georgie goes missing, or another Betty or another Ed Corcoran or one of us? Are you just going to pretend it didn't happen like everyone else in this town? Because I can't. I go home and all I see is that Georgie isn't there, his clothes, his toys, his stupid stuffed animals but he isn't. So walking into this house for me… it's easier than walking into my own.” _

Sharon and Zach both flinched. That hurt.

_ Everyone stares at him. He turns back to the door.  _ _   
_ _ “Wow.” Richie says.  _ _   
_ _ “What?” Ben asks.  _ _   
_ _ “He didn't stutter once.” Richie starts up the steps, like everyone else.  _ _   
_

“Oh, he didn’t.” Richie said, blinking. 

_ “Wait!” Stan blurts. Everyone turns to look at him. “Uhhh, shouldn't we have some people keep watch, just in case something bad happens?” _ _   
_ _ “Wh-wh-wh-who wants to stay out here?” Bill asks. Everyone’s hand goes up except Bev’s and Bill’s own. _ _   
_

“Really not surprising.” Fate said thoughtfully. “If I was just me, not Fate, I wouldn’t want to go in.”

_ The camera cuts inside. Bill walks in, followed by Richie and Eddie.  _

_ “Fuck. I can't believe I pulled the short straw you guys are lucky you're not measuring dicks.” _ _   
_

Maggie suppressed a sigh. She should have expected the foul mouth, frankly, since her mother’s was even worse. 

But even her mother didn’t make the sex jokes that Future Richie had been making.

_ “Shut up, Richie.” Bill says.  _ _   
_ _ “I can smell it.” Eddie mumbles as they move into the house further.  _ _   
_ _ “Don't breathe through your mouth.” Richie advises. _ _   
_ _ “How come?” _ _   
_ _ “Cause then you're eating it.” Richie wanders into what was probably once the living room.  _

Everyone in the room gagged with Future Eddie. 

_ A tangle of cobwebs hangs in the middle of the room, a piece of paper caught in it. Richie approaches it and tugs the paper loose.  _

_ It’s a missing poster with his picture.  _ _   
_

Richie froze, staring wide-eyed at the screen. 

_ He stares at it. The other two look over at him, then approach. _

_ “What?” _ _   
_ _ “It, it says I'm missing.” Richie says, looking up at them.  _ _   
_ _ “Y-y-y-you're not missing, Richie.” Bill says. _ _   
_ _ “Then why's it say it there, it's my shirt, that's my hair, that's my face…” _ _   
_ _ “Calm down, this isn't real.” _ _   
_ _ “That's my name, that's my age, that's the date…” Richie’s voice steadily rises.  _ _   
_

Stan wrapped an arm around his best friend’s shoulders and Richie became more and more distressed at the sight on the screen. 

Maggie was about five seconds from getting up and hugging her son. 

_ “This isn't real, Richie.” _ _   
_ _ “What the fuck? It says I'm missing. Am I missing? Will I disappear?” Richie looks up, shaking. Bill grabs the paper away from him and crumples it.  _ _   
_ _ “Take it easy.” He grabs Richie’s hands. “Look at me, Richie. Look at me. This isn't real. IT's playing tricks on you.” _

Some of the other kids had the nerve to snicker about Richie’s freakout, but Fate intervened. One terrifying glare later, they had shut their mouths as Fate projected the idea of disappearing with no one even caring into their minds. 

_ Then they hear a creak. A faint voice- a girl’s voice. _ _   
_ _ “Hello? Hello?”  _

“Oh my God.” Mrs. Ripsom whispered. 

_ They walk up the stairs. _

_ “Help me please!” _

_ They enter a hallway and see an open doorway.  _

_ A girl lies on the floor, hair a tangle, she looks up at them. _ _   
_ _ “Betty?” Bill asks. _ _   
_ _ “Ripsom?” Richie adds.  _ _   
_

“It’s not her.” Fate said grimly. “Only IT.”

Mrs. Ripsom covered her mouth with a small sob. 

_ She is abruptly dragged out of view with a scream.  _

_ Eddie turns his head- a voice whispers. _

_ “Eddie… What are you looking for?” _ _   
_ _ “Guys, do you hear that?” he asks. The other two have already walked toward the room Betty was in. They enter. Eddie pulls out his inhaler.  _ _   
_

“Oh, fuck.” Richie whispered. 

_ “She was just here, where the fuck did she go?” Richie demands, looking around the room.  _ _   
_ _ “Guys?” Eddie starts running toward them as the door to the room slams. “Guys! Guys!” _ _   
_ _ “Eddie!” Bill yells. _

_ Eddie skids to a halt as the floor falls in in front of him. “What the fuck!”  _

_ A long brown hand settles on Eddie’s shoulder and turns him. His eyes widen. _

_ It’s the leper.  _

“Oh, no!” gasped Maggie, while Sonia opened her mouth and made a noise somewhat reminiscent of a train whistle or kraken screech. 

Eddie found himself the center of attention from his friends and future friends, all looking terrified. Stan and Bill wrapped their arms around him and Richie reached around them to cling to Eddie. 

Fate watched them all with a sad frown on her face. Eddie wouldn’t die yet, but she dreaded it when that moment finally came. 

_ “Time to take your pill, Eddie.” it says, opening its mouth wide- a red pill sits on its tongue.  _ _   
_ _ Eddie falls backward, through the hole in the floor, and hits the table in the kitchen- it breaks and he lies on it. Lifts his head. His watch beeps. He lets his head fall back and hits the table with a thud.  _

Sonia started shrieking about what terrible friends the Losers were and how her Eddie-bear was so fragile and needed to be protected. Eddie cringed, shrinking into his friends. 

Fate gave an exasperated sigh. “Lady, will you please SHUT UP.”

Sonia, startled, fell silent. 

_ “Eddie. Open the door!” _ _   
_ _ Upstairs, Bill continues to try to open the door.  _

_ “Richie.” a voice whispers from in another room where sheets cover tall objects. Richie turns.  _ _   
_ _ “Are you okay? Eddie, what's going on? Eds. Eddie.” Bill continues.  _ _   
_ _ Richie approaches the room.  _

_ “Hiya Richie.” Eddie appears behind one of the sheets, beckoning. Richie enters the room.  _ _   
_ _ “Eddie. Eddie. Eddie. Where the fuck are you. We're not playing hide and seek, dipshit.” He reaches the far end of the room. No Eddie.  _

“Oh, shit!” Maggie exclaimed, thus demonstrating where Richie got his Trashmouth. 

_ Bill turns.  _ _   
_ _ “Richie?” _

_ Richie turns back toward the door and starts walking- the door slams.  _

“Oh, God, no.” Bill mumbled. 

Maggie really couldn’t take her second near-heart attack in as many minutes, and she and Wentworth were both terrified that their son was about to die. 

_ “Richie!” Bill yells, hitting the door hard and starting to wrench at the doorknob.  _ _   
_ _ “Bill, open the door!” Richie cries from the other side, also trying to turn the knob. _ _   
_ _ “It won't open. What's going on? Richie!” _ _   
_ _ “I can't!” _ _   
_ _ “Open the door, Rich.” _

Eddie may have been safe, but it was very clear that IT was now focused on RIchie. Maggie and Wentworth got up and moved to cling to their son, awkwardly crowded onto the couch with him. 

_ The lights inside the room flicker and the sheets fall- revealing clowns. Laughter echoes. Richie turns.  _ _   
_ _ “Oh shit.” he whispers. He steps a little bit away from the door- turns back and screams. A clown toy is standing between him and the door. He backs away, panting. Looks around.  _

_ He approaches a clown, reaches out- taps the face. Nothing happens. “Stupid clowns.” he mutters.  _

_ The cloth falls from a window, revealing a stained glass clown. And it falls from a coffin. _

_ The coffin slowly creaks open. The MISSING poster of Richie is attached to the inside of the lid. And painted across it is one word: FOUND, written in blood.  _

“Oh, God.” Maggie whispered, holding Richie tightly. He didn’t protest how tightly she was holding him. He was too scared. 

_ “Oh, fuck.” _ _   
_ _ Richie approaches it slowly. As he passes one clown, its head turns to follow him _

“Shit.” Richie whimpered. Nobody blamed him one bit, because this was as terrifying if not more terrifying than anything else. Yeah, there had been the possibility of death earlier, but they really couldn’t see any way for Richie to get out of this. 

_ There’s a shrouded figure inside the coffin. He pulls the shroud off- it’s a doll version of himself, mouth stitched shut, eyes clouded, skin crawling with maggots.  _

Maggie rocked Richie in her arms, shaking her head, wide-eyed. 

_ “Eew!” He backs up a little, then slams the coffin shut. It springs open and Pennywise leaps out.  _

Maggie and Wentworth and the Losers were all about ready to start crying any minute, but… 

_ “Beep-beep, Richie.” the clown says, grinning. Then It leaps and Richie backs up, running toward the door- Bill gets the door open just in time and Richie sprints out- Bill shuts the door and reaches for Richie, who’s doubled over.  _

Richie slowly exhaled. No one relaxed. 

_ “Let's get out of here.” _ _   
_ _ They both freeze when the mattress moves and laughs and splits and Eddie’s head pops out. Eddie looks at them, looking sick- grayish-skinned with bags under the eyes. _

“Oh, fuck.” Richie whispered. Maggie hugged him tighter, shaking. 

_ “You wanna play loogie?” the head says, before making a horrible noise. Dark black-red bloody thick liquid pours out of his mouth and he starts laughing. Then vanishes back into the mattress. _

“IS THAT MY EDDIE-BEAR?” Sonia demanded. 

“No, that’s a construction of IT.” Fate said, rolling her eyes. 

_ Bill and Richie look at him, horrified, and then black acidic liquid races out of the mattress toward them. They back into the wall, grabbing each other, looking terrified.  _ _   
_ _ Downstairs, Eddie lifts his head. The fridge is slowly opening- the clown emerges. Stands up. Untwists itself.  _

“Shit.” Bill mumbled. Eddie stared wide-eyed at the screen. 

_ “Time to float.” _

_ Eddie scrabbles backward, clutching his broken arm, wheezing- it follows him.  _ _   
_ _ Upstairs, Bill and Richie are faced with three doors- the far right reads VERY SCARY, the middle reads SCARY, and the far left reads NOT SCARY AT ALL, all written in blood. The boys look at each other. _

The intensity seemed to just increase with every moment.

_ It approaches Eddie, mocking him. Grabs Eddie’s unbroken arm and mockingly tries to bite it. _

Stan and Bill grabbed onto Eddie again, shaking. Richie would have reached for Eddie too, but his mother did not seem ready to let go anytime soon. 

_ Bill and Richie rush to the far left door and rip it open.  _

_ “Where's my shoe?” comes faintly from the darkness. Bill reaches for the light pull- it’s Betty Ripsom, and she starts screaming, her ragged shirt hanging over nothing- she’s missing her legs.  _

Betty’s mother shrieked. 

_ They both scream too, and Richie slams the door, and collapses against it shaking.  _ _   
_ _ “Where the fuck were her legs? What about that?” Richie screams at Bill.  _

_ Bill grabs Richie’s shoulders. “This isn't real. Remember the missing kid poster that wasn't real, so this isn't real.”  _

“Eh, it’s real enough.” Fate said. “Not the real Betty Ripsom, but, um… real enough.” 

_ Richie stares at him, still panicking.  _ _   
_ _ It drools onto Eddie. “Tasty, tasty, beautiful fear.” It grins as Eddie shuts his eyes.  _ _   
_

Eddie whimpered at the sight of monster drool dripping all over the future-him. 

_ “Come on. Ready?” Bill asks.  _ _   
_ _ “No.”  _

_ It’s gums emerge from its mouth and become covered in teeth. _

_ “No. No!” Eddie screams.  _

_ It turns its head, looking upward.  _ _   
_ _ “Oh thank fuck.” Richie says. The hallway is restored.  _ _   
_ _ “Where's Eddie?” Bill asks.  _ _   
_ _ “Help!” Eddie’s voice rises faintly. _ _   
_ _ “Eddie!” Richie yelps as he and Bill race into the kitchen. “Oh fuck. Eddie?” _ _   
_ _ It turns. “This isn't real enough for you, Billy? I'm not real enough for you?” _ _   
_

“Oh god, how did it know that? How did it know-” Arlene fretted. 

“It controls the house, and it knows everything that happens inside.” Fate answered. 

_ “Holy shit!” Richie yelps. _ _   
_ _ “It was real enough for Georgie.” It says. Then it lurches toward them.  _ _   
_

“Fuck!” Bill hissed softly. Georgie snuggled into his side, staring wide-eyed at the screen.

_ Beverly stabs it in the eye with a poker. Chaos ensues.  _

“ Badass.” Richie whispered just loud enough for Bev to hear. She smiled.

_ “Get Eddie - Get Eddie.” _ _   
_ _ “Whoops!” _ _   
_ _ “Let's get outta here.” _ _   
_ _ “Go for Eddie. Come on!” _ _   
_ _ “Guys, watch out!” _ _   
_ _ “Don't- Eddie, look at me.” Richie is now kneeling next to Eddie, cupping Eddie’s face. _ _   
_ _ “Guys! Don’t let it get away!” Bill follows it down into the basement, sees it vanish down the well.  _ _   
_

“Bill-!” Sharon started before faltering, feeling rather helpless.

_ “No! I! I!” Eddie wails.  _ _   
_ _ “Let's get outta here! Let's get outta here!” _ _   
_ _ “Bill, we have to help Eddie.” _

_ Bill races back upstairs.  _ _   
_ _ “Nooooo, Nooooo!” Eddie continues to yell. _ _   
_ _ Richie, Bev, and Bill crowd around him.  _

_ “I’ll- I’ll snap the arm in place.” Richie says.  _ _   
_

“Oh my God, Richie.” Maggie said. Richie stared at the screen, wondering why the fuck he would think that was a good idea.

_ “Don't fucking touch me!” Eddie seethes.  _ _   
_ _ “Well, one, two, three.” _ _   
_ _ “Don't fucking touch me!” _ _   
_ _ “Shit!” _

_ Richie snaps Eddie’s arm back. Eddie screams.  _ _   
_

Sonia straightened, mouth opening, no doubt ready to pour forth a stream of vicious, angry, hateful words. Fate, knowing full well they would hear her opinions on the Losers soon enough, cleared her throat pointedly and mimed zipping her lips shut, thus magically muting Sonia. 

_ The kids run out, leaping down the steps.  _

_ The scene cuts away. Mrs. Kaspbrak bundles Eddie into her car. Glares at the others. _

_ “You, you did this. You know how delicate he is.” _ _   
_ _ “We were attacked, Mrs. K.” _ _   
_ _ “No, don't, don't try to blame anyone else…” _

_ She drops her keys. _

_ “Let me-” Bev reaches forward. _

_ “Get back! Oh, I've heard of you Miss Marsh… and I don't want a dirty girl like you touching my Eddie.” Mrs. Kaspbrak seethes. _ _   
_

Bev bit her lip and dropped her gaze to her lap. 

_ “Ms. K, I…” _ _   
_ _ “No, you are all monsters, all of you, Now Eddie's done with you, you hear, done!” _

_ She gets in the car and drives away.  _ _   
_ _ The kids step into the street after her.  _

_ “I saw the well.” Bill says finally. “W-w-w-w-we know where it is and next time we'll be better prepared.” _ _   
_ _ “NO!” Stan spits. “No next time, Bill. You're insane.” His voice wobbles on the last word. _ _   
_

“Yes, good, don’t go back in there, don’t-” Maggie looked about done. 

_ “Why? We all know nobody else is going to do anything-” Bev says. _ _   
_ _ “Eddie was nearly killed and look at this motherfucker, he's leaking hamburger helper.” Richie gestures at Ben.  _ _   
_

Everyone flinched at the sight of the bloody claw marks on Ben’s belly. Even the bullies didn’t laugh, realizing that for the first time, there was something bigger and scarier than them, something that could very well end up killing and eating them. 

_ “We can't pretend it's going to go away-” Bev says. “Ben, you said yourself it comes back every 27 years.” _ _   
_ _ “Fine! I'll be 40 and far away from here.”  _

Fate snorted. 

_ Ben responds. “I thought you said you wanted to get out of this town too.” _

_ “Because I want to run towards something, not away.” _ _   
_ _ “I'm sorry but who invited Molly Ringwald into the group?” Richie demands. Bev flips him off. _ _   
_

Maggie almost said something, but her nerves were still ragged from just seeing this, and she knew that her son, after going through that, would be even worse. 

_ “Richie…” Bill starts. _ _   
_ _ “I'm just saying, let's face facts real world- Georgie is dead, stop trying to get us killed too.” _ _   
_ _ “Georgie's not dead.” _ _   
_ _ “You couldn't save him but you could still save yourself.” _ _   
_ _ “No!” Bill shoves Richie hard. “T-t-t-take it back, you're scared and we all are but take it back.” _

_ Richie’s eyes widen in response to the shove, then he surges forward and shoves Bill. Bill punches him. Richie hits the ground. _ _   
_

Richie’s eyes widened. Bill froze, turning to look at his friend. 

_ “Bill!” _ _   
_ _ Richie gets up, but Mike and Stan hold him back.  _

Fate chuckled quietly at the sight of Richie flailing his legs angrily in the air. No one else could really see the humor in the moment. 

_ “You're such a loser.” he spits, his lip split. He shrugs Mike and Stan off angrily.  _ _   
_ _ “Richie, just.” _ _   
_ _ “You're a bunch of losers, get us all killed... while trying to catch a clown.” He snaps. _

_ “Stop! This is what IT wants, IT wants to divide us. When we're all together, when we saw it, that's why we're still alive. That's why we are still alive.” Bev says. _ _   
_ _ “Yeah, well I plan to keep it that way.” Richie storms off. He’s followed by Stan. After another moment, Ben, too, walks over to their bikes.  _ _   
_ _ “Mike…” _ _   
_ _ “Guys…”  _

_ Bill and Bev look at the others, then at Mike. _ __   
_ “I can't do this. My granddad was right. I'm an outsider, gotta stay that way.” Mike walks away.  _ __   


“You know,” Andrea said, “not that I’m not glad that they don’t plan on fighting It, but this can’t end well, can it?” 

Fate smiled. “Nope. Not at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A solid three other people have started Watching It fics in like the last two days all of a sudden, so go check out their stories! So far they definitely update more often than I do :)  
Unraveling the Past by crumpledwitchfeet  
Losers! Parents! Georgie! by GlitterFairy_21225  
Derry Watches It Chapter 1 by SarahG625

**Author's Note:**

> A short first chapter/prologue. so. Yeah. The movie doesn’t give us an exact date for Georgie's death, just… the month, and I don't have the book on hand, and Google told me nothing, so I picked a day.  
Here’s to me, becoming the “watching the movies/show” author. Welp.  
I’ll probably update this soon. I might even add a Part Two for Chapter Two, putting it so that they’re watching the movie really gives me a lot of leeway.  
(I could go on and on about the rules for gods, but I won’t. That’s not what you people are reading this for. If you’re curious, I’m happy to explain. At great length. Just ask! On this fic or on my tumblr, @cassandra-starflower.)  
Hope someone enjoys this!


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